Hello and happy holidays from Portugal!
All right folks, brace yourselves, ‘cause this is a long one!
The actual holidays are over, but the fun is just beginning! I arrived in Faro, Portugal yesterday with my rugby team for a week of intensive training. It is absolutely beautiful here – we are living in villa-style apartments at a world-class rugby training centre (that happens to be a 10 minute drive from the beach!) The weather is perfect for rugby, mostly sunny and probably 65 degrees. Oh, and the icing on the cake is the professional men’s rugby league team sharing the facilities!
Portugal follows hard on the heels of a great holiday run. My course mates put on a music and food-filled solstice bonfire that lasted into the wee hours of the morning. Oxford emptied around the 21st, but I stayed on, continuing to work 6-9 hours a day on my environmental economics essay that is due the first day back in class. I’m enjoying the topic – the importance of economic assessment of the London 2012 Olympic Games’ sustainability initiative – but it’s taken a lot of work and research. Our professors said these essays should be of publishing quality, plus they make up about a quarter of our grade for the entire year.
I felt I was being too productive (I’m so used to procrastinating!) so I took an essay break for Christmas. Christmas eve, I went out to dinner with Sarah Nichols (from the varsity ski trip) and her parents. We ended up going to a midnight mass at Christ Church College. I was glad my first midnight mass was conducted by an Oxford theology professor – despite the late hour it was a very intellectual and engaging service. Christmas morning, Sarah and I rode bikes 5 miles out to her cousin’s house (pictures of Christmas with the Nichols family above). We had a lovely time with her family and then mid-afternoon I rode back to Linacre College where a few of us teamed up to cook a goose and countless side dishes. (We got the goose from the covered market, left, where the butcher shops all had full deer, wild boar, and fowl carcasses on display. It all felt very Dickens.) We ate in Linacre’s fancy dining room and had more food, champagne, wine, and port than I care to relate. We ended the night with homemade ice cream and a $75+ bottle of Scotch whiskey. Amazing. (More Linacre Christmas pics below.)
New Year’s turned out to be a lovely surprise. I got an email from my old high school friends Ashley Roberts and Stephanie Stalker saying they were to be in London on New Year’s. I made the trip down to London on the 31st. Ashley and Steph were staying with their friend Lav, and, joined by Lav’s friend Pricilla, we made some amazing brie and cauliflower risotto for dinner. Upon discovering a bar with an 80’s theme night and enough jazzercise spandex in Steph’s suitcase to clothe the lot of us, we hit the town. Turns out we were the only ones gutsy enough to dress up, so we were quickly the life of the party (I say modestly). We were even invited to do our jazzercise routine on stage! The next day, Steph and Ashley came back to Oxford with me for a night of catching up, movies, and slumber partying followed by a day of discovering Oxford’s eating and drinking establishments.
And that brings us back to January 3rd when I left for Portugal! A fun-filled (but also work-filled) break so far. And more yet to come! On the 8th I fly directly from Portugal to Scotland to meet my Laramie friend Brady for some whiskey and Guinness drinking... I mean sight-seeing. Hopefully I will have time to write again from Scotland before I dive head-first back into classes. By then, I might need a vacation from my vacation! Happy holidays to all – I miss you! Good as the holidays have been, they’ve also spurred my first bits of home sickness. So to all, be well, do good work, and keep in touch. For everything, extra big hugs and kisses to my family this week. I wish I could be there with you.
Love,
Alyssa
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