From England to Milan

I'm in the London Heathrow airport, drinking a cup of tea and preparing to board my flight back to Milan.  I really enjoyed this trip to Oxford, though I was correct that my brain would be confused by people actually speaking English.  Also, I struggled with the money and determining which side the cars would come from.

After I arrived on Thursday I had a whirlwind tour of Oxford from a former student who did a Masters at Oxford.  The "university" is made up of a number of different colleges, which are more independent than I had previously understood - each has their own facilities, including chapels, libraries, dining halls, and croquet lawns.  I saw a few of the dining halls and the Christchurch Cathedral.  Everything was very fancy and unbelievably old.  We met up for dinner with the faculty leader of the collaboration I've been working in, and then I got another tour of Oxford - from a very experienced tour guide!  It is very strange to hear how much college history occured between 500 and 1000 years ago.  Additionally, much of the history is ridiculous - public executions, mobs murdering students,  dissections of living people... While the college has many ghosts, we did not see any of them.

The next morning I had a lovely breakfast and then met up with the science group I've been working with.  We discussed where we are in the work and what we will do next and had lunch at the hospital cafeteria - fish and chips were an option, which I enjoyed.  A bit later I gave my talk, which I was fairly happy with.  It has been a long time since I've given a talk to a biomedical audience - I ended up having a very helpful chat with one of the senior researchers in attendance.

After a bit more science, including a video chat with our collaborators in Brazil, we headed to a "formal dinner" at the New College (which is hundreds of years old).  The food was incredible, but the main reason to go is to see "traditional Oxford".  Each college has its own dinner traditions - the Latin spoke at the beginning, etc.  After dinner, we headed to a local pub and had a pint of cider.  This morning I checked out of my room (which was at St. Hilda's College) and we had (incorrectly timed) high tea at the first tea house in England.  No big deal.  I then did a spot of shopping, saw some more sights, and then we went to an INCREDIBLE museum with historic science equipment - and a preserved blackboard from a lecture given by Einstein.