An Opulent Night

This Thursday evening is probably the most expensive night ever in my life! I first went to the wine tasting event in St John's College. I missed out on the one last term because I was too late to sign up for it. The thing is, I emailed the guy about it after receiving the advanced weekly notice from our MCR president, but I was still too late. So this term, I signed up as sooon as the term calendar came out. Embarrassingly, I got a reply saying "wow, that's keen!" as if I was a raging alcoholic... I can definitely see why the wine tasting is such a popular event. It's "a tour of France". There were about 20 bottles of French wine - white, red and dessert. Some were from the 1996! I could now really appreciate why people would describe wine as silky. It was just so smooth! The dessert wine was just divine as well. And to go with all the wine, there were lots of different French cheese. They all stunk but had such rich flavour! I showed my supervisor, who is a gourmet, the list of wines I had. He said I probably had 400 pounds worth of wine that night!

So, after the wine tasting event, I was already a little bit tipsy, but the night of luxury didn't end there. I had to go to someone's leaving dinner. It was hosted at New College and was 30 pounds each person! It's definitely the most expensive meal I've ever had. The entree was wild boar pâté. I've had it once at the formal hall dinner at St John's College and didn't really like it. But I loved this one. It was cooked just right, not too dry and not too soft, and there was no funny unpleasant taste of guts that was present in the previous one I had. The main course was venison steak, which caused much discussion when the menu first came out. I think that's the main reason why the meal was so expensive. I didn't really enjoy venison that much. The meat was quite tough although it looked raw in the middle. It was served in such a thick piece with a very blunt knife that it was impossible to cut through it. I didn't like the sparsnip cake and purple looking pickle (have not idea what it was but looks much like purple German sauerkraut) that came with it. I think I'd much prefer a nice tender beef sirloin steak. The dessert was chocolate and almond tart finishing up with a cup of coffee. When I first at on the table, there were 5 different glasses. And at the end, I used all 5 of them plus an extra champagne glass. There was white wine for entree, the red for venison (and the wine was from 1994! But I prefer the ones I had in the wine tasting), 2 dessert wine and water. Yes, I finished all the drinks as well! It was honestly the most formal setting I've ever been in, and the funny thing is that it was the most drunk I've ever got in my whole life with all the glasses of wine. And I did it in front of people in my lab including my supervisor! And I walked home safely, and was even able to recognise a friend I walked into on the way home and had a decent conversation with him! I'm doing well!

Snow in Oxford!

It's not the first time it snowed in Oxford. It happened overnight when I was sleeping about a week ago. But it's the first time that it still snowed during the day till 2 pm. According to people in my lab, it's probably the heaviest in 5 years. As always, the snow looks pretty when you are sitting at home all nice and warm, but once you step outside, you'd want to curse. When the snow starts to melt, you could only hope that you don't slip and make a complete fool of yourself, not mentioning spraining your ankle!

This is the view outside my window
St John's Street - where I liveAshmolean Museum - I live right behind itRandolf HotelAt City Centre
Someone must have stayed up and made this overnight
On the way to the lab
St Cross College

Life in Oxford

A typical building/gate of an Oxford college

Martyr's Memorial

Radcliffe Camera - a part of the Oxford librarySt Mary's Cathedral

An alley in Oxford

Tom Tower of Christchurch College

Tom Tower of Christchurch College

Roof above the stairs leading to the dining hall in Christchurch College

Christchurch Dining Hall (the Harry Potter hall)

Inside Christchurch Cathedral

Christchurch Cathedral

Backgate of Christchurch College

View from the back of Christchurch College

River that runs along the outskirt of Oxford