Jetlag has been awful. I didn’t sleep as much as I desired
on the plane ride over the Atlantic, and all day Monday, I was very tired. To
help us adjust, we needed to stay awake, so John and Shannon organized a day of
activities to keep us going. We had a couple hours of free time, so Seth and I
wandered around and got lunch. He also came suit shopping with me, and I
noticed that the service from most of the associates we interacted with was not
as friendly as they are in the States. The lady at the sandwhich shop we ate at
for lunch was brisk and brief, as was the gal at the coffee shop when I grabbed
a hot chocolate. At the suit store, nobody came to our aid as I wandered around
the suit section; I had to ask for help (although when I did, they were nice and
interactive). Maybe it is because I am an American: the two workers in the food
shops were French, and maybe they dislike tourists. The gentlemen at the suit
store were my age and British, so maybe there wasn’t as much tension there, but
merely cultural differences in store associate/customer relations. We met up
for a walking tour of Oxford, which was really nice, but I could not stay
conscious. I kept falling asleep, even walking or standing. The lady that gave
us a tour was very knowledgeable and responsive, but I’m afraid I missed parts
because of my inability to stay awake. I still don’t know where everything is
in Oxford, but I got better today as we walked around.
Our morning started off with a wonderful breakfast and an
induction into the Oxford library. We all must take an oath to protect the
library before we received our Oxford cards, and it was a neat ceremony. Our
inductor, Helen, was brilliant. She was very well spoken and eloquent, maybe
because she has told the story several times or maybe because it is culturally
significant to be articulate. We were inducted in a wing of the Bodleian
library that is right behind the place where they filmed all of the hospital
scenes from Harry Potter. We took a tour of Duke Humphrey’s library, a wing full
of old texts dating back to even the 12th century. The culture in
the library is very different than the States: silence is critical, and even
small conversations are unacceptable. We went into the small readers-only
section (readers are those with library cards; keeps the tourists out) and
caused a scene not because of our noise, but because of our presence. They
subsequently kicked us out, but its interesting that such quietness is regarded
so highly as that the mere presence would make people so upset. The culture is
just different I guess, and we underestimated the power of a group of 28 quiet
people.
Lunch today was also strange for me. I realized that my normal
restaurant habits and requests make me uncomfortable because I think that
culturally it might be strange. For example, I felt bad asking for tap water
because it usually isn’t something you ask for. When you order water, they give
you a bottle of water instead. I probably wouldn’t have done it had everybody
else not done it, but it actually seemed not such a crazy thing to the server
who put a lemon in the water. We also shared food, and I’m not sure if that is acceptable
either. In an effort to be sensitive to the culture, I have become very
paranoid of my American presence. Even though I do need to be aware, I don’t
think I need to be so worried about it.
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