Turtle Soup

My new tortoise friend

I have a new plan for life in case grad school doesn't work out--culinary school. I've been a top chef all day, and it's been so fun! This morning I baked mushroom marinara, and it was supreme. I baked a giant batch of cinnamon cookies this afternoon that I shared with everyone, and then tonight for dinner I sautéed spices, onions, and mushrooms and poured them over homemade fries. I topped the whole thing off with freshly grated cheese. I realize that these aren't particularly high-class dishes, but they are delicious. Basically, I just want to cook and eat in Europe for the rest of my life. Tonight we went to the evening service at Christ Church where another boys' choir sang. I'm kind of obsessed with boys' choirs now by the way. Right now we are waiting to go camping, and by camping I mean walking around until we find a forest to sleep in. We'll see how this goes, eh?

Now we are back from the “camping trip.” Yeah, that didn’t quite go as planned. We walked out to Port Meadow, but when we got there the fog was so thick that we couldn’t even see 10 feet in front of us. The boys kept talking about serial killers, and it totally freaked me out, so in the end we all went back home and attempted to sleep in the back yard. Significantly less triumphant and cool that we wanted it to be. I guess we will try again later in the semester—I brought my hammock!

School is really stressful right now because we are trying to get a bunch of assignments turned in before our trip to Italy, so that’s why the blog posting has become less frequent. I did have a completely awesome day today, however. I volunteered at Christ Church again, and after our shift was over, the ladies invited me down to the Priory Room where they snack, drink tea, and talk. We had just finished making tea and were sitting down when Sally walked into the church room with her little wiener dog and tortoise. I drank tea and ate biscuits for an hour while a large 60-year-old tortoise sat on my lap. I can’t say that I woke up thinking I’d hold and pet a tortoise today, but it was so nice. We don’t get much animal interaction here, and I miss my pets back home, so it was great to be able to get some animal lovin’. Yet another wonderful day in Oxford!