Small cars only

The roads here are pretty tight. Parking spaces are even tighter. Here are a few pictures of some 2 way traffic roads.

I give Neil credit for being able to handle these small roads. Not sure I could do it and trust that I wouldn't hit a brick wall or maybe worse. Plus he has to deal with some of my back seat driving. I have driven, but I leave the longer trips to Neil. So you can imagine my extreme excitement when last weekend the Smith's surprised me with a vintage 1964 Italian Vespa. The absolute perfect set of wheels to handle the Oxford roads... not to mention an amazing antique that I will love riding. I'm so very excited about this. A few little changes and repairs are being made. I just love it!

Swamp Bugs

Mom, I know you may be worried that I might be losing touch with my southern roots, picking up British slang, and saying 'cheers mate' instead of 'bye y'all.' Or maybe that I've stopped drinking CC's in favor of tea. But you can rest assured that I'm still holding tight to a lot of southern traditions. With college football back on you can bet we will be cooking some red beans and rice. Neil and I are staying up late tonight to watch the Tigers and Tar Heels battle it out (but really it will be a one sided battle, right? Let's hope). 8pm kick off, means 1am our time. Real fans, huh?

You will also be very happy to know that I've been nourishing myself with some good ol' crawfish. That's right, they have crawfish here. They may be from the Thames, called crayfish, and served cold in a mayonnaise type salad on a po'boy brown roll...but they are pretty darn good. I might just have to break out the trinity and show some English friends how to really cook them swamp bugs- Étouffée! Or better yet, if I can find them live in bulk next season, we may be rolling out the paper and having ourselves a good old fashion cajun crawfish boil.

Okay, we're off to watch some football and enojy some American traditions across the pond. A very happy birthday to Neil's dad, Jim. Hope you're having a great weekend!

Cotswolds

We took a lovely day trip into the Cotswolds. It's exactly as you would imagine. Picture perfect English countryside towns and villages just about an hour outside of Oxford. If you ever come visit, this little trip is a must do.

Lately

I can't believe that summer is already over here. Mornings and evenings are chilly and it's been raining almost every day. Here are a few pictures from the last few weekends. We caught the tail end of a pick your own produce farm and scored some berries and made cobbler. We've been riding our bikes out to some fun gastropubs. The picture of Neil sitting under a willow tree is at The Perch, a classic English pub with huge grounds on the Thames.

On another note, the spiders here are no joke! We were shocked to find this guy in our sink. I'm not sure if the picture does him justice, but he was very large. Every morning I have to fight my way through our front walk because of all the webs from the night before. They are persistent and like clockwork, are always there in the morning. I quickly learned to swat my way through after the first few days of blindly walking through and getting massive webs to the face. They, on the other hand, do not learn and keep on spinning across the walk. I was talking to my colleagues about all the spiders and they say England wouldn't be England without all of the spiders.

Ireland

Hello all. We're back from Dublin. The trip started off on a stressful note because we hit two extra hours of traffic on the way to London and were very close to missing our flight and potentially the whole trip. But it must have been the luck of the Irish because we made it and so did our bag. We spent most of our time in Dublin, but also spent a day on the west coast to see the beautiful Cliffs of Moher, and also a half day in a small seaside town called Dalkey Village. The weather changed about every ten minutes but for the most part it was clear and nice. We had such a great trip. Now we're off to do laundry and unpack and Neil starts work tomorrow!

Biking the Countryside

Everyone in Oxford has a bike. So to fit in and feel more "local" Neil and I took the plunge and bought matching bikes. (Yes, they are the his and her version of the same bike.) We were about to take an evening bike ride the other night and we ran into some neighbors of ours. They told us we definitely need to get "hats" and to be careful on the small streets.
We took a much longer bike ride this weekend up into Cumnor Village. I say "up into" because it's on the top of a hill, a 3 mile long steadily climbing hill. But we made it and the view from the top was pretty nice.

Finally Back Online

We finally have internet at home. I don't even know where to begin to catch you all up. So much has happened the last three weeks.

{Long day of travelling}

{Neil at the wheel. So tired, he's taking a little nap}

{Yay, home}

{River Thames, by our house}

{Jericho. Cool car}

{More Jericho. Cute grocery}

{Punting, River Thames}

{Oxford University}

{Merton College fields}