Oxford

My Tolkien and Lewis class took a "study trip" to Oxford this weekend--purely educational of course, consisting of drinking pints at the Eagle and Child pub, punting on the Magdalen College Canal, and taking a tour of Christ Church College to see the places they filmed the Harry Potter movies (getting in for free cause we were "prospective students"). The Chaplain was strictly professional the entire time ;) There was absolutely no discussion of who could drink who under the table nor a mention of settling it via tequila shots. But as awesome as all the drinking was, the punting had to be the trip's highlight. Punting by the way is where you steer a boat around with nothing but a big metal pole, a lot like what the gondola guys in Venice do. For whatever reason, this turned out to be a goldmine of great quotes:

Molly, on Diana’s punting tenacity leading them all the way down the Magdalen College canal until they were severely lost:
Yeah….we hit the Thames. And if we had followed what Diana wanted to do we would’ve gone to London

The Chaplain, or, as we have affectionately dubbed him, SBM, on my not knowing how to punt:
You should’ve paid more attention to the lesson on shore
Me:
Lesson?

Emma, in regards to Josh’s offer to help her punt:
Don’t help
Josh:
I helped before and it wasn’t a disaster!

Josh, on Emma's creative mix of punting and kayaking:
This is American punting. We’ll make a new sport! Except we won’t call it punting, we’ll call it…baseball.

(Interesting fact about this final quote…while we still have NO idea what made Josh think of baseball as the name for American punting—in which neither balls nor bases are involved—shortly after this we did hear some British guy ridiculing his friend’s punting ability as the latter whacked at the water with his pole, saying, “What are you, playing baseball?”)