Punting, Christ Church, Pranks...

So funny story-

Every Wednesday, all the students in the Oxford exchange programme have to check-in at the OPUS office, just to make sure none of us have ditched the country or gotten kidnapped.  Anyway so one of the girls has had a friend from the states visiting this past week.  His name is Dan, and he's a pretty cool guy.  He tagged along when 10 of us stopped by OPUS to check-in today.  The program director is pretty disorganized and a little oblivious, and so while he made us all wait in the hallway as he checked us in 1 by 1, one of us got the idea to send in Dan to check-in for John, pretending to be John.  We figured the program director wouldn't even notice.  Dan's a chill enough guy to do something ballsy like that, and what do you know, our idiot program director didn't have a clue.  John busted into the meeting 2 minutes later, and we all had a good laugh.  Those silly Brits can make up all the rules they want, making us check-in and wait in the hallway for half an hour, but they can't recognize our faces...

I finally busted into Christ Church today.  It's by far the most prestigious of Oxford's colleges, and is probably best known as one of the main sets for Harry Potter.  It's dining hall was used as the "Great Hall" in the films.  So when I was exploring with my friend, looking for the college bar after a long study sesh, and we just happened to stumble on the Great Hall, it kind of blew my mind.  

After I got home four of us decided to go for a run through the fields behind our flat.  Imagine a couple mile run through the English countryside, passing horses and sheep as you go.  It was gorgeous.  We have plans to run tomorrow morning, but who knows?  

I've been meaning to post some pictures from punting last week:

(Punting is the English version of an Italian Gondola-  4-6 people fit on a boat, and you use a stick to push it through the mud.  It's harder than it looks!  Super funny though.)  

This picture was taken before we took off.  John is at the top, then James, Kate, and me!

Here's a picture of me and Brittany.  The two of us lived with James for four weeks before the new people moved in, and during that time James said a lot of things that made me and Brittany give each other this look...  

Of course I wanted to try punting myself.  It wasn't long though before I learned I sucked at it.  I drove us into the bank more than half the time.  Not my thing-

John took over for most of it, but even he ended up in the trees sometimes.  

I'm better at the sitting and drinking part of punting.  The whole thing was really fun.  We're going punting on the Cam this Saturday at Cambridge.  Can't wait!!