Damek.

The first week is over. My class, “The Irish Question,” was excellent. The tutor knew his subject and kept us enthusiastically engaged. I had known very little about the troubles, so the course was fascinating. Christ Church itself is still awesome, of course. You see an amateur panorama of Tom Quad and more choice shots from the college grounds in the Week 1 gallery [UPDATE: scratch that, you can see them at flickr now]:

Everything else was great, including the pub crawl and the couple of nights we were able to go out dancing with the student assistants. I got some nice shots on the night of the pub crawl, including one at the Turf Tavern (image here), apparently Bill Clinton’s favorite Oxford pub, and also where Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke drank 2 yards of beer in 11 seconds to avoid paying a fine for failing to wear his gown to dinner. You pretty much have to go down some narrow back alleys (like this one) to get to it. We ended our pub crawl down another narrow alley at The Bear (image here), which was visible from my classroom window. Unfortunately it was also audible from class, when they’re rolling in the casks in the morning.

In the middle of the week we participated in an excursion by bus to nearby Ewelme and Dorchester, where we even allowed ourselves to be photographed.

But the week went so fast, and now it’s over. Having a schedule and class each day keeps things moving along.

Now we’ve checked into the Burlington House bed and breakfast in Summertown, north of Oxford city centre. We’re so tired we’re just lounging around in our room watching BBC channels (they have a little TV in the room). We did get out to have a nice dinner down by the Thames, but it was raining so we had to eat inside. Now that we’ve had a rest over the weekend, the fun starts up again tomorrow. Weather permitting, and it looks like it shall, we’ll be going punting/boating and to see a museum or two. Hopefully I’ll grab some photos of the Queen’s swans.