Oxford

On Friday, the Cambridge and Oxford grad students in New and Old Testament got together for their annual “Oxbridge” conference. This year it was hosted by the Oxford students, which meant that I got to go to Oxford for the first time :)!

The bus trip over was fun; I sat by my Finnish friend Samuli, and we had a chat about all things Oklahoman and Finnish. It was nice to talk about things totally unrelated to New Testament Biblical Studies, especially since the rest of the day was dominated by talk about Coptic manuscripts (which, don’t get me wrong, I love) and liminality (which, don’t get me wrong, I still don’t even know what that is). Honestly, though, the day was good, even though listening to six papers in one day can get a little boring, a pleasant lunch and tea breaks helped a lot… not to mention a few better than average papers.

The day was beautiful, so the walk around the central part of town was nice, made even nicer by a very sweet Italian lady who was selling Gelato from a cart. I take my ice cream very seriously, so when I saw “Strawberries and cream” on the sign, I had to ask… “Are there real strawberries in the ‘Strawberries and cream’ flavor?” I’ve been let down by fake syrup tasting stuff too many times before; my heart could hardly bare the disappointment on a day like today.

She looked confused and said in thick Italian English, “You are-ah asking me something-ah very hard-ah.”

I tried again, “Strawberries and cream, yes? Are the strawberries real?” She stared at me blankly. “I’ll have chocolate,” I said, and handed her £2. I think I made the right decision… it’s much less risky to go for chocolate.

At dinner that night, I sat by my Romanian friend, Dan Batovici, who shared the Gnocchi gorgonzola appetizer with me, and was envious when he found out how good my Lasagna al Forno was. I felt happy.