Thrift-shopaholic and Tidbits

12 March 2008

I am having a field day at the thrift shops here. Of note for me has been the one pound purchase of a very sturdy and well-pocketed canvas book bag, as well as the purchase of several very English-looking overcoats (whatever that means in this global community). I might not wear them all here, but I certainly would embellish my wardrobe with them, back in the States. One of the coats I am so excited about is an actual “riding coat” which has the air of something out of 19th century detective novels. Now, all I need is either or both of a top hat or an actual Sherlock Holmes hat that I saw at a nearby shop. I will have to have this coat slightly altered because it is just a little large. For the men out there, think of it as buying a useless old car that you want to renovate and “fix ’er up” with a new engine and paint-job. The same goes for me with this riding coat. It is totally unnecessary, but it has a character beckons me to invest in it. In the back of my mind, I have been thinking about the cheesy gifts I promised to bring back to my Writing Center colleagues. A few possibilities have arisen already. However, I will not divulge because I do not know which eyes will read this post, and of that, which people are prone to talk.

I think the initial, “Oh my god, I’m in England and look at all the things they sell…” switch is off and worn down now. I’ll settle for a coffee now and again, and start walking in the opposite direction towards my particular campus: Brookes College. It’s quite a bit more modern and doesn’t have that in-town feel to it, but I have paid for their amenities and need to start settling in where schoolwork and my blogs need to be done. Only because this first week has been quite a whirlwind have I allowed myself to go to the local internet cafes, but I have too much to print to make it an inexpensive enterprise. I’ve completed all my notes from last week’s classes, and on Saturday, I’ll email and print them out at another local shop at the end of Rectory Road (just down the street from me). It will be another new adventure.

One thing to note about the shops and restaurants in Oxford is that many of them appear very small from the streets – the kind of “small” that might discourage one to go in for the lack of space, but you see a lot of arrows pointing up or down – many of the shops are underground (very cool indeed) or an upstairs area lurks behind the main shop area if you go far in enough. At the recommendation of Dean Ulmer, I went to Café Nero, and found that they had an entire floor above the cramped first floor area. For example, though I have no reason to go to Pizza Hut (being an American in Oxford), Pizza Hut has a most interesting and alluring restaurant that almost compels me to go in. On the ground level, there is nothing but the signs on the glass store front, but if you look in, you can see the entire restaurant below, like an underground cavern.

On another matter, I’ve been enthralled by the various language patterns here. In America we also have variations of our own language and the various foreign languages that surround us. Here, however, we are daily exposed to the variety of “English” English which has an entirely different rhythm as well as different stresses. It’s quite melodic, and in the larger picture, it is not uncommon to hear the languages studied in school or viewed in movies (French, Italian, German, and Spanish in particular). It is surreal! I love languages, and even if I don’t recognize them all, my imagination fills in the spaces and I feel like I’ve been transported to an unreal place.