Greetings from Oxford!

We made it!  My friend and classmate Nathan Ricci, who is also a Fr. Smith fellow at Blackfriars but is working on a different project, and I left Boston around 7:30 Monday evening and arrived at Heathrow in London around 6:30 Tuesday morning after a relatively uneventful  flight.  After a ninety minute bus journey led by our jolly driver named Steve, who most certainly could have been mistaken for a character in the Harry Potter books, we were greeted at the Oxford bus terminal by PC student Tom Nailor, who is studying abroad at Blackfriars for the year as well as the junior dean of Blackfriars, Mikolaj. 

We dropped off our belongings and received a brief orientation to Blackfriars, meeting the vice-regent, Fr. Conrad, visiting the library, and receiving computer log-in information.  Afterwards, Nathan and I went to lunch with Tom at the Eagle & Child, a pub next door to Blackfriars where C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the other Inklings used to meet.  After some delicious fish and chips, we had a chance to spend a while wondering through Oxford, which, by the way, is absolutely beautiful.

Later, I went to the 6:15 Mass at Blackfriars, followed by Vespers, where I saw another familiar face, Tom Reilly, who graduated from PC last Spring and is pursuing a second bachelor’s degree at Blackfriars.  After Mass, I made a quick trip to the grocery store to pick up a sandwich and a Fanta (you’re not in Europe until you’ve had a Fanta) for dinner and returned home for the evening.  While Nathan is living in a house about a block from Blackfriars with some of the other American undergraduates, my room is in the other house owned by Blackfriars, about a mile away in a scenic area filled with shops. I have five housemates, who are all graduate students at Blackfriars, and we each have our own room; everyone has been very welcoming and hospitable so far. 

While there is a bus from Blackfriars which drops me off right at my doorstep, it was a nice night, so I decided to walk home.  I got observe a number of interesting sights, including the Oxford Cribbage Club in full swing with a number of games going inside their building and spilling out onto the lawn.  After getting home, I had a quick dinner, unpacked my suitcases, and headed to bed.  After a refreshing 10 hours of sleep, I think I may have defeated my jetlag already, and I’ve just arrived at Blackfriars to see what my second day brings…

P.S.  There will be pictures coming once I figure out how to get an internet connection in my room, which will hopefully happen today!