British Music

Now that I mentioned a British band, I should talk a bit about the British music scene for my music-lover friends. Not that I've seen/heard much of it to be honest. Since the only connection I still have to the outside world is a cheap alarm clock radio, I listen to Oxford's supposedly-contemporary music radio station. It's such a weird mix though of popular British rock music, a few just-past popular in the US songs, and then some really strange 80s/90s tunes from US and UK. Like I don't know how many times I've heard Colour Me Badd's 90s tune I Wanna Sex You Up. Old school!

But here are a few bands and/or songs that they currently play constantly on the radio.

British bands/singers
Keiser Chiefs "Ruby" - I like this one. Had to grow on me, but catchy. Kinda Killers sounding.
Just Jack - "Why you Gonna Go Put Stars in Their Eyes" - they play this constantly. Very different, but also catchy and you find yourself humming along.
Corrine Bailey Rae - don't play her enough. Sort of a British Nora Jones.
Lily Allen - hot new singer in the UK right now.
Snow Patrol
Joss Stone - Just heard her new song " I Wanna Have Your Baby" Good song, but odd title.

Haven't heard much of my two fave British singer/songwriters: James Blunt and Jamie Cullum.

American
The Fray " How to Save a Life" - Was tired of this when I left the states. Now the British are just picking it up.
Pink
Gwen Stefani
Justin Timberlake
Nelly Furtado
Then a totally random mix of early 90s and early 2000 music; Semisonic, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Guns & Roses, Bloodhound Gang, Colour Me Badd, etc.

The British don't seem to be into rap or alternative rock, although I've heard a little bit of JayZ or Kanye West.

Celebrity Sighting!

Many American's have probably heard of this current popular British band, Radiohead. Their first hit song was Creep, back in the 90s. The band was formed in Oxford, and lead singer Thomas Yorke lives here still with girlfriend and kids. I was out on a walk with the Newcomer's Club and made a new American friend, Frieda. We were walking out of the University Park and he walked right by us. I had no idea who he was, but Frida was really excited. I didn't believe her at first, but he has a droopy eye, and so when I looked at online photos, it was definitely him. Kinda fun!

Tesco Trip

Well I was excited for my Sunday excursion, because Betinna invited me to go grochery shopping with her at Tesco. Wow, the excitement! She has a car though, which means I didn't have to walk somewhere to haul groceries, and I got to ride in a car traveling on the wrong side of the road! Since Betinna is German, her car is similar to American cars where the driver is on the left side and the passenger on the right. It feels funny though on the road when all the British drivers are on the right side! So she picked me up around 11 ish, and we traveled up to Tesco. Tesco is like a large supermarket in the states, with tons of people shopping for the bargains. We loaded up there, and then came back to town and had tea (coffee for me) and muffins at her flat. I'm beginning to enjoy the afternoon tea idea. It's nice afternoon activity, especially with someone you can visit with. Then off I headed to Brian's lab to meet up with him and use the internet!

Brian's Office

More to come on Brian's office photos, but here are a few. The front of the Physics building, and Brian's desk.

Canal Pictures

We went for a walk along the Oxford canal last weekend. Quite an interesting area of the city. Many people either live in these canal boats, or just take a weekend trip, and travel up and down the canal. They can dock for up to 48 hours in one place, so they can walk into town to buy supplies. The people on the boats range from homeless types to retirees with pretty fancy boats. You can also view the backyard gardens of many semi-detached homes along the canal as well.

Castle Pictures

Since I still have limited access to email/internet, it's difficult to find a opportunity to post some photos. But I'm in Brian's office (again) using the internet and am going to try to post some photos here for you to view. They are of the Warwick castle tour I went on two weeks ago. These are the girls I met and hung out with for the day. Betinna is on the far left, and we've been hanging out every so often as well - meeting for tea or walking around the colleges as I mentioned before.

Spring Lunch

Busy day today! I am making the best of being unemployed and I quite like it! Brian and I finally had a chance to sign up at the gym yesterday. So this morning we had to go around the gym with an instructor before we were allowed to workout on anything. He had to show us every single piece of workout equipment, how it works, and then we had to test it out to show him we won't break it or ourselves. We also had to conduct a health assesement, which included a blood pressure test, weigh in and fill out a medical history form. I felt like I was at the doctor's office! We came away with clean bills of health I guess, and looked like we could use the equipment well enough without breaking our arms off or something, so we're excited to finally get back in shape! Nice thing about this facility is that there is a pool for Brian to swim in, free pilates, yoga, aerobics classes for me and showers!

After the gym, Brian headed to work and I went to the Wednesday morning Newcomer's Coffee again. By now, I realized I knew about 4-5 gals already, so was fun to chat with them and figure out what trips we're signed up for this coming week. This is the group that I went to tour Warwick Castle with last week. I met 3 other girls on that trip who I befriended. Betinna is from Germany, Anna from Croatia and Olga from Russia. I already met up with Betinna yesterday for cream tea, and will see Olga tomorrow at a Oxford City tour we've signed up for.

After this morning's regular coffee meeting, the club's annual Spring Lunch started at noon. The volunteer committee members, who are a tad older and mostly are European and call us all "loves", put together a typical English ladies lunch with a little raffle. Very fun, just to see the entire event. The members all bring in various types of salads they prepare at home, and then there are various French quiches to try. Mine was a spinach, walnut and stilton cheese quiche. Quite interesting I would say. Stilton is a blue cheese which the English are well known for. One glass of wine (we tried to go for a second, but they said only one glass comes with lunch). I did enjoy the lunch, but there can only be so many salads made with mayonaise. Yikes! They also then like to serve a round of fruit after your plate, then a round of chocolates along with a round of coffee. Quite a long leisurely lunch!

After the lunch, the sun was shining and the temperature was moderate, so Betinna and I decided to go walk about the city centre for an hour or so. We walked through a few University parks, and discovered that we could visit one of the colleges for free, using her University card. So we visited the grounds and some of Magdalen College. It was beatiful and she took pictures which I hope she sends and that I can post. We were able to look in the Dining Hall, the church and the deer park. You'll have to come visit to really get a sense of the historic beauty here.

Cream Tea & Pancake Day

Today is Pancake Day in the UK. From what I've heard, it's an annual event celebrated the Tuesday before Lent starts. Back in the day, certains foods couldn't be eaten during Lent such as flour and sugar, so the best way to use them up were to cook pancakes. Now they have pancake races where people have to run around flipping pancakes without dropping them. Good fun!

Also met up with a new friend today for Cream Tea. Her name is Betinna and she's a lawyer from Germany. Her boyfriend is a lecturer at one of the colleges here. She's also unemployed for now, and we met last week on the Warwick Castle tour. We exchanged mobile numbers, and decided to meet for afternoon tea at 3 p.m. in the city centre. Cream tea includes a scone, clotted cream, strawberry jam and tea or coffee. I went for coffee with cream and sugar, and Betinna had tea. Clotted cream is like a very thick cream that isn't really sweet, but you spread it on your scone, and then put the jam on top. It has the consistency of soft butter and is quite tasty.

Heading home to the flat soon to make dinner. We're going to cook spinach crepes for dinner so we feel that we're taking part in Pancake Day.

Update: here are some photos of our crepes!

Why Ultra Wag?

Welcome to our Oxford blog! You'll mostly hear from Kelly on the blog, but hopefully Brian will be able to post once in awhile too. We finally found a little time to get this thing off the ground, and it especially helped when I figured out a name for it. With the help of the guys in Brian's new Ultrafast physics group, I learned that I am a "Wag". And in British slang - Wag means "wives and girlfriends". Victoria Beckham is the ultimate Wag for obvious reasons. But when we were at the pub last night with some of the lab blokes and a few of the wives/girlfriends also came, the guys teasingly named the gals the "Ultra-Wags" for the Ultrafast group wives and girlfriends. Ha ha!

Keep visiting to see what we are up to and we'll try to get photos posted too. Please comment and let us know how you're doing!