Its hard to believe that I have been here for over two weeks. Time has been flying by and I am in the full swing of things in regards to academics. I spend most days researching for my weekly topics about the gospels and about Judaism in the time of Christ. I probably spent about 8 hours reading today and I still have more to go. I have one or two essays due each week and I need to have enough knowledge about each topic to be able to defend the position that I take to my tutor, who has a doctorate in their field.

But don’t worry, its not all academics here. There are times when I do manage to slip away from the library for some fun. For fun on the weekends we sometimes check out different pubs around Oxford. The pub scene is pretty big here and all the locals have a pub they call their own. Pubs are a good place to hang out with a group of friends or to meet locals and each one has its own unique characteristics that distinguish it from others. I usually go to a place called the Radcliffe Arms, which has American Football on during the playoffs. (Go Bears!!!)

Oxford also has plenty of museums, all of which are free. I went to the Oxford museum of Natural History last weekend and it was incredible. The University has been collecting different things from all over the world for quite some time and have compiled an astounding collection with millions of items. On display, they have several life size dinosaur skeletons and actual skeletons from animals like deer, elephants, giraffes, ostriches, and even people. (About 250 years ago, , those who received the death penalty had their bodies donated to the University science and afterwards and the skeletons were used for teaching.)
The museum has another room which is almost indescribable. I spent about and hour walking through a room filled to the top with many display cases each filled with random anthropological objects from around the world. Rather than put just a small amount of their vast collection on display they have put so many items out that it is almost impossible to look at all of them. Among the highlight of the collection, there is case filled with shrunken heads, an antique gun collection, model boats from around the world, a mummy, clothes from around the world, different writing utensils from different periods in history, and hundreds of other objects that are too numerous to mention.

Cheers. (That’s the British way of saying, “Have a good one!”)