Dear Oxford, What's the Deal?

Dear Oxford, what's the deal with snow?!

Snow is hitting England real hard these days.

On Monday we had a whopping one inch of snow. But apparently that nearly exhausted the Oxford supply of salt to de-thaw the roads.

They completely cleared all the roads by noon and the buses were running just fine during the day. The citizens of Oxford assumed that this was their big snowfall for the year. They were wrong.

Snow hit hard again and unexpectedly Wednesday morning, with a couple of inches coating the streets and the rooftops in the morning. 200 schools had class canceled for the day. The buses were postponed half an hour, which apparently is real serious business. Like Monday, the streets and sidewalks were pretty clear by mid-day. Oxford yet again thought their winter woes were over.

But Thursday morning, we found snow on the ground again! Whereas previous days it had stopped snowing by midday, the Thursday snowfall lasted till about 4...it was glorious! Matt Foerster and I were walking around Christ Church, throwing snowballs at each other and simply taking in all the glory that is snow. We went to a cafe, grabbed cappuccinos, read books and then walked to the secret village.

But along the way I noticed something silly...people in Oxford don't really seem to know what to do when they play in snow so they do one of 2 things: a)make snowmen (there were snowmen all over the place in all shapes and sizes) b) roll snow into giant balls...when I first saw these mounds, I thought they were rocks coated in snow, but alas just kids of all ages playing with snow and leaving their mark via snow mounds everywhere.

At St. Peter's college I saw some silly snow things:
1. Some people had carved a huge squirrel out of snow and had used pennies for eyes...it was incredible.
2. Some one peed next to the library. How did I know? 2 words....yellow snow. Apparently this is the most snow that Oxford has had in 18 years and a snowfall like this isn't predicted to be seen for another 20 years! And I am experiencing it!

My Medieval Travel Writers professor and I talked about snow for the first 15 minutes of my tutorial. On Monday, London closed down the metro, the buses, and the trains. In regards to this unprecedented incident, ATJ (my tutor) said rather indignantly, "Well, they didn't once close down the public transportation in WWII, I don't understand why they are doing it because of a little snow". People here just do not get snow. It's not a particularly enjoyable event for many people, just more of a hassle and a nuisance.

Oh, Ps...it's snowing again today.

Dear Oxford, whats the deal with MONEY?!

People in Oxford don't use credit cards.

There have been so many times when I have been in a restaurant or cafe and wanted to whip out a credit card but realize it's not socially acceptable. I've come from a country where plastic is the primary form of currency to a place that relies almost entirely on coins and bills. Yes, that's right, I have to keep reminding myself that a pocket full of coins IS valuable.

I keep wanting to put all my change in a cup and not want to carry it around with me, because let's be honest, change is a pain. But you almost have to carry around and use change. The £5 bill is the lowest bill that the British have, which means everything under that is in change. So if I buy something for £2 and pay with a £5 bill, I will get change back. The British though have realized how silly it would be to only have £1 coins under this system. So they have £1 coins AND £2 coins. They also have 50¢ coins. Oh and they have 1¢ AND 2¢ coins. My question is...why the heck would you even need a 2¢ coin? It's realllyyyy sillly. And makes for a lot more change to have to carry around and know what's what.

Dear Oxford, what's the deal with FASHION?!

So it's winter here but just about every girl here INSISTS on wearing shorts.

How do they pull this look off in the cold you may ask? Well with black tights of course. Seriously just about everyone here rocks short shorts, black tights, and cowboy boots. I left my cowboy boots at home particularly because I thought it would be too stereotypically American, but no, the plaid and cowboy boots look is in here.

One day Kitty Mullet and I were doing homework in Coffee Republic and as you can see, we had the perfect people-watching window. But we noticed that literally about 93% of the females that were walking by had spandex/black tights, really short shorts/short dress/miniskirt, and Ugg boots/cowboy boots/other miscellaneous boots.

Things I have learned about Oxfordian girls on the whole
1. They are really into the bleached blonde hair look that they tease to make it look real messy.
2. They wear tons of makeup, which I was not prepared for.
3. I always thought that Americans wore really short skirts, until I came here. I have seen more butt cheeks than I ever would have liked to.

Dear Oxford, what's the deal with YOUR WEEKLY TOP 40?

Why is your February weekly top 40 my summer playlist?

I was listening to the radio in the kitchen the other night and it so happened to be their current top 40 hits-list. The current number one song is I'm Yours by Jason Mraz. Other songs on this list included One Step at a Time by Jordin Sparks and Shake It by Metro Station. These are literally the songs that I listened to at the end of summer and they are the most popular songs in Oxford. So all I have to say is what's the deal with being 6 months behind in music, Oxford?