So here is the post for the misfit toys -err- stories. (Sorry, I'm starting to get excited about Christmas time and Rudolph is an old fave). These stories really do not belong anywhere, but they're clogging up my imagination, so I find it best if you take them in, keep them warm, and put them to rest.
John the Porter:
Here at Wolfson College (and every college which is a part of Oxford University) we have a main building called the Lodge; it is where the College porter on resides while on duty. It is his or her kingdom within Wolfson. In the Lodge, the porter occupies a small room with a glass window separating the sanctum from the rest of the lodge. In the oldest colleges it really is a cool practice, because you walk through an ancient, heavy wooden door with a bronze door knocker, into a stone corridor where the porter sits. You can imagine a time where every big house had a butler and gatekeeper, and so every old Oxford College had a doormen- or porter. The effect is lost on Wolfson, because it's so new and we are like, SO over that stuff. Yet, the practice remains. And I quite like it. You just walk through a glass door made in the 1960s instead of a step up and over a wooden doorframe into an 800 year old courtyard. No matter.
The Porter's duties involve greeting people (and knowing the answers to all questions), sorting the mail into everybody's pigeon holes, holding all of the keys to the gym and other places (they are the veritable St. Peters of our lowly little world), making change (when it's laundry day) and if you're John the day porter- being smashingly awesome in a truly Anglo-Saxon fashion. There's a night porter who is pretty nice as well, and I suspect John goes back and forth between day and night, but all in all he is a great man.
He is in his sixties-ish, tall with a bit of a belly (it's common here), a super cheerful demeanor, and thick square glasses.
One day, I walked into the Lodge to get the key to the gym. I had something else going on that day so I wanted to get in, work out a bit, then get back to the apartment to change and go. I greeted John. He greeted me back. I asked for the key to the gym. He gave me said key.
1 and a half hours later, I went into the gym to begin my workout.
---what happened, you ask??
Well, John handed me the key and proceeded to explain the reason there was a laptop open on a desk in his little sanctum, and that he was working on a paper that he wanted to have published. It was about archaeology. At this point, I was still in the 'smile and nod' phase because I wanted to get going. But then he launched into his life story, and well, I got hooked. He got a degree in business, worked hard at three jobs, did this and that. All of the sudden, after years of working hard and putting too much on himself, he dropped to the floor with a heart attack about ten years ago. Then he launched into the 'smashingly awesome' phase of his life. He went back to school, with grey hair, got an archaeology degree, ended up doing something that got him an honorary graduate degree from the University of Oxford, and now he's trying to prove that some battle in the 1200's occurred in a certain spot on English soil and he's doing that through a poem. Yeah, you had to be there. But he recited the poem line by line for me, and gave his reasons for thinking that this ancient battle occurred somewhere near the coastline, and it was some specific part of English coastline near Cornwall because the line in the poem says something about mud and that place is particularly known for the coastal mud. It was a long shot, probably, but so terribly cool and exciting to me that this was his project, and subject of his current paper, that I did get reeled in to the stories pretty quick. He described the battle, blow by bloody blow. Of course it had to do with Frenchies, and a bunch of Kings were involved. Anyway, from here John launched into the story of his family and how they've traced the lineage back to 800 or something in England. He named names, he gave gripping descriptions of his family's last funeral, when everyone was gathered for the first time in years…I'm sure there was a large family secret (I think he was related to some royalty?) thrown in as well.
In a nutshell, he's a terribly interesting guy and now we're friends. The best part was that M and I went to a party later that day and ended up talking to a returning DPhil (oh yeah, it's DPhil not PhD, and MSt instead of MA) and she had lived in Wolfson last year and when I said "wow, I spoke with one of the porters today and he talked for an hour about this 500 year old poem and how it somehow proves the location of an ancient epic battle-" she said immediately: "that must have been John."
Oratory Choir:
M and both joined the choir at the Oratory. It's so much fun. One criticism is that there are no vocal warm ups to speak of. We simply warm up by singing the easiest song first, then launch immediately into octave jumps, triplets, and some of the highest notes a soprano (or bass) can hit. Needless to say by Sunday afternoon M and I are croaky little toads, sipping water and trying to communicate via telepathy as much as possible. I joke, it's not that bad. But I almost lost my voice one week!
The leader of the Oratory choir is a gentleman named Edward de Rivera. He is a short, white haired, and thoroughly British- with kind, crinkly eyes and a thin smile. And he always wears suits that look very clean and pressed. He always makes a point to ask me how I am getting along, right after we finish rehearsing. I get a kick out of the fact that all the music is labelled "Ex libris- Eduardi Di Rivera" because it makes it sound like he is some robust Spanish or Italian man with thick black hair. When in fact, he is the exact opposite. He does have a deep voice though. Everyone in the choir is extremely kind, and I think we fit in well with the group. The music is gorgeous and challenging. The stairs up to the choir loft are stone spiral steps. It's a pretty tight spiral, too. Every time I go up, I almost get dizzy. This choir is not for the faint of heart.
Brew.
There is a pretty little alley (it's enchanting in the evening due to the twinkle lights) called Parade Avenue in north Oxford. It is so nice and quiet because it's out of the city centre and closer to us northward Wolfies, and here it is during the day:
Within this alley, there is an amazing coffee shop called Brew. I haven't bothered with going out for coffee since our arrival (there are two Starbucks shops pretty close by, and I've heard horror stories about the prices there) but after my choir audition I felt pretty good about things and decided this was a time to celebrate with an espresso.
Not only that, but earlier on that morning I found 1 British Pound coin abandoned on the sidewalk, so I figured it was the universe telling me I had to go for a treat. Speaking of this, Max has also found 1 pound on the road, so we are basically now rich. I know.
I had walked past the shop so many times and it just looked so cool I knew I had to stop at some point. I didn't photo document the event, because it was just an ordinary day. But here is the outside of the coffee shop:
See what I mean? It's almost too much. The espresso was outstanding and the owner and I had a fun time nerding out about siphon brewing, pour-over, and Turkish coffee. Fun time. Oh and you can see through the shop window on the right his gorgeous copper espresso machine.
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