March 14, 2007

The First Adventure Well, my first adventure of the break was absolutely amazing, although nothing was as we had planned. The goal was for one of my classmates, Emily, and me to hike to where the Thames starts from here in Oxford. We set out as planned and everything went perfectly for the first half hour, then we came to a few spots on the trail where it was washed out and flooded. This was no problem though, we were still energetic about it and didn't mind taking off our boots and socks and holding our pants up above our ankles. We set off on that first day at about 1 pm and made it 6 miles up stream and camped out at a lock which was manned by a cute little fellow. It was a beautiful camp and we made it in plenty of time to set up, cook dinner, watch a beautiful sunset and then walk into the village pub to get hot chocolate and read the newspaper. At the pub in Swinford the bartender told us that the trail ahead of us was probably even more flooded and boggy than what we had already encountered so he recomended walking the roads. The next morning we discussed his advice, looked at the trail ahead of us and decided that the roads might be a little nicer. I was extremely relieved that, while the roads we were on did not have sidewalks, they were not of the classic UK countryside style with huge hedges lining either side of the 1 1/2 car-wide 2 lane road. We eventually arrived at a town called Stanton Harcourt where we found a beautiful little church where "Christian souls have been worshipping for the last 700 years and still meet here every Sunday." We did learn a few vluable tidbits about life in the English coutry-side. First off, they live in Vilages, not towns. Towns are larger. Also, if you live in a village you do not count the number of 'people' who live there but rather 'souls.' So, for example, in the Village of Hinton Waldrist there reside 127 Souls. Every village has a Church and evey Church has an old old graveyard around it. We spent the afternoon of the second day mucking along next to the Thames again, continually hoping that around the next turn it would get better. It never did. In fact, it tended towards getting worse. At one point we were wading through water which almost came up to our bums. It is safe to say that our hike was going swimmingly. We finished out the day as best we could and then headed in to a village and found a campground to stay at. Due to the adversity we had facaed that day we decided we deserved a warm pub meal and so ate at the Black Horse. Emily's tummy had an adverse reaction to her fish and chips so that was a pretty tough night. In the morning we disussed our options over a bowl of porridge and decided that, in order to fairly say we had given it the 'good 'ol college try' we needed to at least get out there one more time, so off we went. That morning lead us through a lot of farm land and after 2 hours, 3 bunny rabbit sightings, a discussion revolving aound Watership Down, Jane Eyre, boys and mystery novels, we came into more fields of standing water and determined that enough was certainly enough. So we looked at the map and compass and determined to head off uphill in hopes of finding a road. 4 fields later, when we did find a road, we celebrated by sitting down and eating our lunches next to a pleasant little stream which had the courtesy to stay within its banks and enjoyed the sun a country side. From there we headed up in to a small village hoping to catch a bus upstream to a place wehre we thought the trail would be dryer, however, all the buses only headed in to Oxford and the next one was four hours away. At the advice of a lovely woman out working in her quaint garden we took a beautiful footpath over to the next village where we walked across teh grounds of an AMAZING estate which Emily informed me wouls be occupied by the sort of company around whom the Bronte sisters' books revolved. We wandered into the Bule Boar pub and took our mid-afternoon tea and listened as three old chaps who sat at the bar with their stool legs holding the leashes of their sleeping dogs. It was probably the most fun I have ever had eaves dropping. It brought me to the realization that in Cities such as Oxford, Cambridge, and London, the English have learned to tone themsleves down. They hold their conversations in whispers until they get drunk enough to start yelling but at that point a person like me has no hope of understanding a word they are saying. But when one gets out into the coutryside, into villages that are out of the way, where the English are openly English, you learn a lot. These three men sat there in their well made clothes, with their well behaved dogs, sipping on their wel drawn drafts, speaking about their wives, lands, holidays, and of course, Hitler. It was really a pleasant experience. From there we caught a 'bus' (it was actually a van) back in to Oxford where I am now sitting and wondering why my heels hurt so badly. The main thing which has stuck with me was an inscription on a plaque in one of the Churches we visited. It said "Even in the midst of Life, there is Death." I am not quite sure how to take that, but I am proud that I am learning to be able to bend my perception in the English direction enough to understand that it is not meant as any sort of a negative thing but rather, a fact. And to understand that it should be taken as such and nothing more.