Today is our last day in Oxford. We leave this afternoon for Spain. I would be lying if I said I was ready to go. There's something about this place. I don't know what it is, the culture, the people, the weather...something just begs you to stay. I now understand why my friends all came home from Study Abroad talking about how they wanted to move to Oxford for good. They weren't being dramatic, they were speaking the truth.
This place changes you, who you are. Student say they come here for school and end up finding themselves, often in a different light then they thought they really are. As I sit here on a modern-looking leather Ikea sofa, next to a huge bay window overlooking a beautiful, typical English back yard with it's brick walls overgrown in moss and vegetation, blogging away on my apple laptop and drinking the laté I purchased at the local hole-in-the-wall sandwich shop this morning, and enjoy every minute of it, I can't help but think, what's happening to me? I'm big tough Scott! I live in Texas! I catch rattlesnakes for fun! I carry a gun! I drive an SUV! I don't sit by the window, blogging about deep issues while drinking latés! But here I am. Enjoying every minute of it.
Ok, back to Earth here...sorta. This morning Ronnie and I went to On the Hoof for one last breakfast. They were all so excited to see us when we came in and they were apologizing because they knew we had to leave today (they really know their customers well). Debbie sat down with us and told us of places we must visit while we're here and of some of the crazier people around town. She also told us about famous people that have come into On the Hoof in the past. It was a nice morning.
When Ronnie and I got back to the house, Stephen Shoemaker, Kevin Kehl and Corey Patterson were waitng to take us to get some scenic shots around town. First we went to a local market where people did not want to be videoed. After that it was off to Christ's Church which was so magnificent it was hard to take it all in. I got some footage that will hardly do it justice but I'll post it this evening, pending we have internet in Spain. After Christ's Church was Iffley Church. Another beautiful church with an amazing graveyard surrounding it. Again, a pleasure to shoot but we were in such a hurry I felt quite rushed. I guess I'll have to come back again!
Here's a video from Christ Church and Iffley Church. These 2 aren't in HD due to bandwidth, I'll work on that later.
And here's a video of what driving through Oxford looks like. Notice how the styles of architecture change from building to building and block to block. So beautiful!
Arrived at airport and went to get on plane. Turns out you can only have 1 carry-on bag (under 10 kilos) and if you check more than 1 bag (under 15 kilos), it's £16 per additional bag, PLUS any weight over your 15 kilo limit costs a ridiculous £12 per kilo. Now I understand why most of Rayan Air's flights are about £5. So upon figuring out it was going to cost a LOT of money, we made a mad dash to a scale and started swapping out items and bags with everyone in our group to try to keep the extra charges to a minimum. It was tough for me because I am carrying $12,000 or so worth of sensitive video equipment in my 2 carry-on bags and I refuse to check any of it due to it's value. It's a good thing I bought a backpack-style laptop case before we left. I managed to fit the camera and laptop in it and my other valuable's in other people's carry-on bags. We finally paid our extra charges and moved on to the security checkpoint. I won't reveal the numbers but let's just say it was a lot.
Security seemed pretty typical until the metal detector dings when you walk through. Instead of letting you empty your pockets or remove a belt and try again like they let you do in the US, you're simply patted down. And by patted down, I mean a security guard gets VERY friendly in his search. After the security guard made it known he wanted to be close friends with me, I moved on to the bag-retrieval where I was questioned by the ladies as to why I had all of the equipment in it. I didn't think much of it since I was questioned in Abilene as well since there are a lot of cords and hard drives and 2 cameras, and it could seem suspicious, but when i finished explaining to the lady why I was on this trip she said "Oh wow! I was just being nosy because it's very nice equipment you have there!" Go figure!
While we were sitting in the terminal waiting for the plane (that would end up being 30 minutes late), Ronnie Morgan shared some food with us that he brought back from france. On a small wheat cracker he stacked a rather large slice of Brie and some Jamon Crue Fuma. Roughly translated that means Pig Raw Smoke. Aka, smoked raw ham. It was unbelievable. So much flavor, I really can't describe it. I won't tell you how much I love it until tomorrow so I can make sure I'm not sick from eating raw ham and un-refigerated cheese on a cracker!
We boarded the plane by walking out onto the tarmac and up the stairs. An interesting thing about Ryan Air that the US companies should consider is that you board the plane from both the back AND the front so loading and unloading are quick and much less of a headache. Seats are not assigned so you just find an empty seat or or row and sit down. The inside of the plane is simple, no pockets of magazines in the seat backs or buttons for reclining your seat. Advertisements are posted on the overhead bins and your safety information is printed on the headrest of the seat in front of you.
The safety presentation by the flight attendants was something out of an edward-scissorhands era Tim Burton film. The walls and ceilings are a sterile white, the seats are a deep blue, and the headrests, trim, and overhead bins are a bright shade of over-saturated yellow. With that as a backdrop there were a half dozen flight attendants in their bright blue uniforms, hair tightly pulled back into a bun, moving as one demonstrating the safety features. Perfectly choreographed they pointed out the exits and how to inflate the life jacket. For a video nerd like me, it was very cinematic.
The flight to Girona was, for the most part, smooth. Cramped, loud, smelled like microwave pizza, liquor, and cheap "fine wine," but smooth. It was very cloudy but it made the view spectacular. As we flew over the Pyrenees they just poked through the clouds that stretched all the way to the pastel blue & orange horizon with just a slight break through which you could see the ocean.
God's artwork is pretty freakin' amazing.
After the flight we caught a taxi to our hotel. The driver had a bit of a lisp but my grasp on his Spanish was still pretty good. It will be pretty cool to be in a total immersion situation with Spanish where hardly anyone in the city we're staying in will speak English. Now to our hotel. It's nested in between two beautiful Cathedrals on streets you may expect to see in Italy. The "streets" are maybe 15 feet wide and both sides are 5 or 6 story buildings. So basically beautiful alleys. Our hotel is called "Hotel Historic" and it's exactly that. It was built in the medieval era, probably a castle of sorts. Now they've added bathrooms and electricity and the typical amenities one "needs" now days. It's beautiful! However, internet access is sparse so I don't know how often I'll be able to get on.
We walked a few blocks to an outdoor restaurant for Dinner (at 9:30, people here eat late). It was a 3 course meal. My first course was Melon con Jamon which was Slices of raw smoked ham on some sort of very sweet melon. The ham was excellent with a very earthy, nutty taste. While the combination may seem odd, the sweet melon was a perfect companion to the ham. My second course was Conejo con All i Oil, which was Rabbit with garlic and oil. All I can say is I'll be trying to shoot some rabbits when I get back home. It was amazing. Dessert consisted of Flan & Crema de Catalon. Again, both amazing. A little bitter, not to sweet, but a perfect compliment to an amazing mea. After dinner we walked around the town of Girona a little bit to look at the architecture and culture. We found cathedrals from the 11th century and walls and arches from the 3rd century. Still standing! Still intact! I'm going to have fun videoing this place.
ALSO! I found out we're also going to a futball game on Saturday night!!!!!Barcelona vs Atletico de Madrid! It's going to be insane! For safety reasons I may have to take my handheld HDV camera instead of my nice DVCPRO HD camera but either way expect some crazy soccer game & crazy soccer fans footage here in the future!
Now I'm off to bed. I hope I can find internet to upload videos of some of theses sites throughout the week!
