Ryan Does England

The past two weeks were insane, and made me realize why normal people take vacations without appending the word “working” to them. Emma and I drove from Oxford to Liverpool to Edinburgh to York to Chester to the Wye Valley to Oxford, stayed for three hours to go to a dinner in Worcester with David, and hopped a train to London to meet Doris and go clubbing. The next morning, I pried myself out of bed to pick up my mother at Heathrow, took her out for pies, and dropped her off in my room to nap off the jetlag before leaping on a boat for a nautical edition of This Is Your Life with Emma, David, Brian and Chase, Erika, Abby, Mark, Debs, Jamie and Ed, R. Dave, and basically anyone else I ever talk about at Oxford. The boat party turned into a pub, which turned into a bar, which turned into a club, which turned into Emma and I crashing on my floor at 2am. And then all three of us woke up for a surreal breakfast of yogurt and crumpets on the floor of my room in our pajamas before Emma left and I hung out with my mother for a week.

And then the next week was basically insane. When I pitched this visit to my mom, I was like, hey, come to Oxford and it'll cost you like $10 because we'll just hang out and I'll cook stir-fry all the time and you can crash in my room. This did not happen. We went to the Natural History Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum, walked to the end of Cowley Road, went punting, went to gbk and walked around Worcester's gardens, went to London and hit the National Gallery, Covent Garden, Westminster Abbey, and the British Museum before seeing Avenue Q, went to my viva and had lunch at Gee's, went to St. Mary's and the Bear for the classic cathedral/alcohol double-header, went to a dinner party, had french toast for breakfast, went to the Botanical Gardens, Christ Church Meadows, tea at Cafe Loco, and Christ Church, and made huevos rancheros with David, went to the Turf, went to Blenheim Palace, came back for shakes at Moo-Moos, went to my department's garden party, watched some Little Britain, visited Rhodes House for a breakfast, then spent a day in London at the British Library, Spitalfields, lunch on Brick Lane, evensong at St. Paul's, fish and chips at a pub (she felt obligated), and then went to the Tate Modern and crashed before I took her back to Heathrow because getting to Terminal Four was intimidating.

And now I start teaching in a week. Yay!