'Snow' Day Like Today

There is nothing quite like waking up after your first real sleep in two days, walking into your kitchen, and finding a view like this. 

Snow outside our kitchen window

I am a born and raised Texas girl, and yes, I realise there are some places in Texas that get snow. But honestly, nothing like this. It’s been snowing since Friday, and despite what you (and I) think, this is not a usual occurrence here. All the locals are talking about it. It’s not supposed to snow for much longer, so I’m definitely enjoying it as much as I can.

Today I went out for a walk by myself around town. It was my first time to go out alone, and it was rather enjoyable. I didn’t do much, except for a couple errands I had to run. I just rambled for a couple hours as it snowed. I went out pretty soon after taking a shower (and for those who don’t know, I rarely, if ever, blow dry my hair). Obviously not the smartest thing to walk around in the (literally) freezing cold with wet hair, but the falling snow just got my hair even more wet, so it’s not like it mattered. Plus, I’ve mastered this whole layering thing. I wore a long sleeve shirt with my sweater and my raincoat, along with my Wellies and gloves. To be honest, I actually was a bit uncomfortably warm, if you believe it!

I also went to Port Meadow with a few friends, the open fields of pure white just stunning. There’s still more of it to explore, but I’m excited to see it after all the snow has melted away as well. It’s apparently one of the prettiest parks in the area.

Someone had just left this in the middle of the field!

These past few days have been very relaxing. Everyone has just been orienting themselves with the city. It’s pretty easy to navigate, and I already have certain routes memorized. I’ve been to several pubs, but I’m putting the brakes on that for now. It’s just too expensive and not as healthy to be eating out as much. I need to plan out my meals, but I’m excited to cook for myself!

One of my favourite places we visited these past few days was Blackwell Bookstore. I am such a bookworm (and with not being able to stream video in the house, I’m sure I’ll be reading a lot when I’m not traveling, working on homework, and hanging out with people), but that’s not the only reason this place is fantastic. This store has not one, not two, but FIVE floors. Yes, five whole floors. The ground floor has most of the books I’m interested in, but there’s a basement that in and of itself has several small staircases leading to different levels, and then three more floors above the ground floor. I didn’t even get to see it all when I was there, and, kind of embarrassingly, I got lost… Not lost lost. I just ended up in a room that didn’t connect to the main part of the building, so I had to do a lot of backtracking. It was fine. I’m sure I’ll be paying the shop another visit in the coming weeks.

Another fun thing I hope to experience while here is something Natali, Morgan, and I are trying to do: get a milk man. It would be so unreal to have glass bottles of milk delivered to our front doorstep every week. I’m not sure we even still have milk men in the States. However, apparently someone else has already signed up House 9 for the delivery route. We just don’t know who… It’s a mystery we need to solve. And soon. Also, the three of us will hopefully be starting a “Mystery Solving” blog, recording all the mysteries around town and in our house that we solve. We just need to find some good mysteries first…

Tomorrow we start classes. I’m feeling really pumped. I just want to have a steady schedule and get going with everything. This is already a great semester, and I can’t wait for it to get even better!

Missing you all!