Ah, the joys of being American...

Conundrum of the day: Every time I call soccer "soccer", I get corrected. It's football. But, if I correctly call it "football" when I'm referring to soccer, everyone isn't sure which football I'm talking about, since they see I'm American and assume I haven't switched to the European term. So they'll ask me anyway, "are you talking about American football or soccer?" Therefore I've gone back to calling it soccer, since it's more easily identifiable what I'm discussing.  Why do we call it soccer, anyway?

Anyways, yesterday we went on a walking tour and got a feel for where everything is in the city.  Oxford the city is fascinating, since the huge, imposing, walled Gothic-style university buildings are intermixed throughout the city with local shops, banks, etc.  I saw where Boyle's Law was invented; it's right down the street from me.  Christ's Church ("Hogwarts' Great Hall modeled after this church!" Really? That's what you're promoting?) is fairly close also.

I live on Cowley Road, which is on the outskirts of town and is full of ethnic food shops.  It's nice since it's a part of town that I probably wouldn't have explored had I lived in the city center.  Got a phone, got a bank account; I even braved the grocery store yesterday.

I'll leave you with the other "joys of being American" story: The other day, I was lamenting the lack of addicted morning coffee-drinkers; most of my European friends drink tea instead, and good coffee has been hard to come by.  One of my friends asked why Americans don't drink more tea; he had assumed it originated with the Tea Party (the 1773 Boston event. why has this name been reclaimed in such an awful fashion?): that Americans had held a continuing vendetta against symbolic British goods that shaped coffee drinking in the U.S.  At the time; I blew it off. But turns out he was right. The increase of coffee drinking dates back to  us avoiding British goods + a lack of availability of British tea through the start of the 1800's (thanks Wikipedia). It's always enjoyable when you find out more about your country's history from other nationalities :).  That's one of the main reasons I came to Oxford, anyway.  International perspectives are so much more interesting.

Cheers!

Lisa