Hello! I'm Back! And I Come Bearing Gifts of Oxbridge Scholars, Fancy Luncheons, and Chocolate!

Okay, first of all, I suppose I have to apologize for being absent so long.  As you can see, my 365 Project became the Fail Project.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to take a photo a day?  Oh, don't be fooled, my fair reader.  You may think to yourself, what's one photo a day?  But it is INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT!  My absence these past months has also been due to the fact that I was completing my senior year of college, and that took up most, if not all, of my free time.  No worries, though, nothing too exciting happened, so you didn't miss much.  However, now that it is "summer" (I put this in quotes because it is currently 40 degrees out and stormy) I plan to update more often.

What is even more exciting is that I will have Cambridge updates!  Cambridge updates?  What?  If you haven't been informed of this, click here for the lowdown.

And so today is my first Cambridge update!  Yay!  On Monday morning, I flew to Washington D.C. with my mother to meet the committee that selected me for my scholarship.  We arrived before noon and got settled in at the place we were staying, an apartment complex/hotel called The Westchester (if that doesn't sound British, I don't know what does).  Since my lunch with the committee wasn't until the next day, my mom and I spent most of Monday wandering around Georgetown, this fancy little area close to where we were staying.  I don't know D.C. very well, but we seemed to be staying in a very hoity-toity location.  The houses/apartments were gorgeous!  Stupidly, I only took a picture of one, and this picture hardly does justice to the housing of the area.

Graham Down, a lovely British man who helps run the committee, suggested my mom and I go to La Chaumiere, a French restaurant only "about a mile from The Westchester."  Mom and I decided to walk since it was about 85 degrees out and cabs were unbelievably expensive.  However, it turns out that this restaurant was a good four miles from The Westchester.  After about an hour and a half of walking, starving and sweating unattractively, we found the restaurant.  Here is a sampling of the menu: calf's brain, mussels, frog's legs, snails, chicken liver, and veal.  Each of these dishes was around $35.  *sigh*  We ended up getting some good ol' BBQ at a restaurant called Old Glory.  Much preferred to random animal organs.  

After dinner we wandered some of the shops around Georgetown.  They had a lot of fancy clothing stores--Banana Republic, Kate Spade, Steve Madden, Anthropologie--but we were thrilled to find a Dean & Deluca's store.  We didn't buy anything there, but we admired their wine and chocolates.  They were like works of art!  Incredible! 

Exhausted at the end of the day, we took a much need cab back to The Westchester, turned on the air conditioning (Yes!  Can you believe it?!) and settled in for the night.  The next morning I got myself all dolled up to meet the committee.  Though Graham told me not to be nervous, I was.  I had no idea what to expect, and I was about to be surrounded by men and women who had either graduated from Cambridge, Oxford, or both (in Graham's case).  I was afraid they'd ask me crazy random questions such as, "Do you think Americans are the last Victorians?" (a question Graham had to answer at Cambridge) or "What do you think about [insert important political policy/current event that I know nothing about here]?"

All ready to meet the committee.  You may notice that

1.) I am wearing the same outfit I wore to my graduation, and

2.) I look like the president of a sorority somewhere in the South.

[in Southern accent] "Welcome to Alpha Kappa Kappa!"

When I finally met the committee members, I was happy to find they were much more welcoming than I expected.  Yes, they were formal, yes they were scary intelligent and accomplished.  But I had to keep in mind that I am a pre-Cambridge scholar, only 21 years old.  My time will come.  They didn't ask me any scary questions; mostly they asked me if I had any questions for them.  They told me a lot about my degree (actually another Bachelor's degree, not a Master's, though the degree equals a Master's) and what classes would be like (tutors and no set schedules and no final dissertation, just a HUGE SCARY exam).    We discussed how literacy isn't considered as important in the United States, but public speaking is (though I think this varies from location to location).  They told funny stories about falling out of punts (a type of boat very popular at St. John's), meeting famous authors on stairwells, and maids opening bedroom windows in the middle of December because it was good for the health.  One of the gentlemen told me to invest in long underwear because in England I would experience a cold damp unlike anything else in the world.  I wanted to say, "Sir, I live in Wisconsin.  I spend 8 months out of the year in cold damp and long underwear."

Overall, it was a lovely lunch.  They have made me even more excited for Cambridge.  I know it will be an experience unlike anything I have come across in my life, and I'm thrilled for the culture shock.  One of the committee members told me, "After Cambridge, you will no longer be the simple Midwestern girl you are now."  I don't like to think of myself as "simple," but I understand what he means.  Cambridge will culture me, show me the world.  Part of the scholarship includes travel money, and the committee stressed that I must must MUST travel.  Well...if I have to...  :)

So that was the lunch.  I have wanted to go back to D.C. for years (I went on an 8th grade class trip, but at 13 I hardly cared), but this trip didn't allow me to do any sightseeing.  After the lunch, however, I walked over to the Washington National Cathedral which was just down the road from The Westchester.

I walked around the cathedral for a while, trying to remember if I had been here before (in 8th grade).  It seemed really familiar (though I suppose many cathedrals resemble each other).  Then I had to hurry back to The Westchester and pack.  Mom and I said goodbye and headed to the airport.

Goodbye, Westchester!  No time to even make the beds.

And home again!  It was a great trip, even if it was rather abrupt.  I feel better having met the committee, but I am even more aware now of how much work and adventure I have ahead of me, starting this fall.  For now, though, I won't dwell on four papers a week or that HUGE SCARY exam.  Right now, I am going to keep thinking about equestrian lessons and where I want to go with my travel money.  Any suggestions?