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Adventures in London

With the Master	Westminster Abbey
Statue of Churchill	High cuisine
Hallowqueen	Birthday cake
Sarah and Holly	Crowded House Stage
Holly and Cath at Crowded House	Holly and Cath before Crowded House
New Zealand Rhodes scholars

It's been a long time between news, if not drinks! I can't believe it's almost December - apologies for the long delayed update. Things here are going very well - in fact there is only one week left of my first term! It's really flown by. Winter has set in - it's dark by 4.30pm and below 0 degrees most nights, which is a bit grim, but my room is lovely and warm. I can see why people hibernate over winter though!

Academically, things are going well. End of term means weekly essays, but there is only one left now, so the end is in sight! I am finding the course really interesting and rewarding (although with Economics and Statistics to grapple with there are altogether too many graphs and equations for my liking), and I'm looking forward to getting stuck into my first long research essay over the Christmas break. My classmates are by and large lovely and lots of fun, as are the other graduate students at my college. My neighbour Sarah and I have formed an excellent arrangement where we go halves in a mixed case of wine to get a substantial discount, then drink it together before bed when we have finished our reading! Is working out very well:)

I've been enjoying some of Oxford's other enticements - public lectures, cycling outside of the 2km University radius, singing The Messiah in an all-comers choir, doing a strange thing called "gumboot dancing", editing book reviews for the Oxonian Review of Books (and soliciting subscriptions!) - as well as venturing further afield to London a couple of times. On my birthday night I made the trek to see Patrick Stewart play MacBeth, which was most exciting. I'm planning another weekend there as soon as term finishes - followed by a mini-break to Birmingham with Catherine on the 3rd to see Crowded House. I am very stoked about this after missing them in NZ! I've caught up with Sarah (cousin not neighbour) a couple of times too - it's wonderful to catch up with her and she seems to be doing really well in London (and a better job than me at sending email updates!).

Also exciting is that Dave arrives on the 17th. We'll explore Oxford and London (having Christmas dinner with whatever rag-tag group of people we can find in one of those places) and then have a week in Barcelona from 2- 9 January. I can't wait! It will be a balmy 15 degrees there I am told, which seems positively tropical.

Attached are a range of recent photos. The first is with the College Master, Lord Butler, who is just lovely (as is his wife, Lady Butler, who has offered to tutor me in statistics!). This is his last year as Master, and I feel lucky to have been here for it. He was one of Britain's longest serving public servants, serving as Cabinet Secretary to five Prime Ministers. He also wrote the Butler report into whether Britain should have gone into Iraq (the one that concluded that there were no WMDs) so a very impressive personage to know. The next couple are famous sites in London from a weekend I had there a few weeks ago. Then we have: the NZ Rhodes scholars dressed up for our "coming up dinner" at Rhodes House (at which I managed to cause a scene by fainting dramatically after dinner - not enough water was concluded to be the cause); Sarah and I at our recent joint birthday party with delicious cocktail-shaped cakes baked for us by fellow University College graduates; me dressed up as a builder for a cross-dressing Halloween ("Halloqueen") party; and a sample of the delicious cuisine this country prides itself on!