Rowing along

I went out at 6 am - in the pouring rain - and i STILL loved the rowing session this week. Go dark blue (that's codename for Oxford team sports. i'm nowhere near good enough to be on the team yet. for now, go Hildas). So i'm out there, and i've never been in a boat and i've never heard the commands and i'm not sure about anything. I'm sitting in this boat, i can't see the caller (cox) and she's saying things with a british accent and i'm totally confused. One of the key items is to memorize your position number. And then know what your position is, in terms of "bow 2, bow 4, stroke 2, stroke 4, all row" in the boat. whew. For now i like it, but we'll see how the workouts are...difficult, i expect.

More on this series, difference between British life/culture and American:
- don't try to figure out which side of the sidewalk to walk down. its a free-for-all.
- people seem to have limited sense of spatial awareness. four people will fan out along the sidewalk, blocking it as they walk along. they don't move or regroup when there are oncoming pedestrians. actually, i've seen two people walk just far enough apart from each other to block the WHOLE sidewalk. why? because they can. fascinating.

More terms and phrases:
"nip off/over" - go there. usage "do you want to nip over to the Lamb and Flag for a pint?"
"bop" - an oxbridge college party. usage "did you go to the Linacre bop? i heard it was wild!"
"oxbridge" - anything that pertains to both Oxford and Cambridge. so no one else in the world calls a party a bop. its just oxbridge (nobody else has this funky system of colleges as social units).
"boat club" - crew team. refer to each boat by the number of people in it: "the eights will be decided on later this week. twos and fours will train at 7 am".

I've decided Zoe's advice on how to negotiate difficult situations here is golden: if you don't get what you need, ask someone else. This was true with the bank account, the cell -oops, mobile- phone, everything. amendment to that advice: ask often.

That's all for now. More thrilling news (and PHOTOS!) to come.