Living in a Tourist Attraction

I sat in my window seat, reading Northern Lights and occasionally glancing up to watch people walk through the quad below me. Mostly students walking to the adjacent library, the occasional construction worker on his way to scale my building and bang as loud as he possibly could on the roof, just when I'd finally settled into a comfortable position.

But then a small crowd of about 15 students walked through the quad, laden with shopping bags and Oxford paraphernalia. I looked up from my book to see one of the students notice me sitting in the window, and then he did something I didn't expect -- he smiled and waved at me. Naturally, I waved back, but then this prompted a more noticeable reaction from the rest of his group. Everyone saw me waving and returned the favor.

I didn't really know what to think. This was probably the most surreal experience I've had since arriving at Oxford almost two weeks ago. I'm literally living in a place people travel and pay money to see. Since then, I've had one other group of students wave up at me and plenty of random tourists take pictures of my dorm. Some even point up at my window, like, "Look at the Oxford student in her natural habitat!" This is a far cry from living in the dorm my freshman year of college -- believe me, NO ONE would pay to walk around Brumby Hall at UGA. For those of you unfamiliar with my dorm freshman year, let me see if I can sum up Brumby's essence in a few words: it's a cramped, ugly high-rise dorm filled to the brim with girls. You do the math.

Side notes:

• I saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix last night and it was INCREDIBLE! A longer review to come later.
• My Romantic Lit class gets to travel to Tintern Abbey in Wales tomorrow. Hopefully it's just as beautiful as Wordsworth describes in his poem. Pictures and stories to come later.