Oxford: Summer VIIIs

Summer eights, the big sporting event of the year, in which each Oxford college races the others while crowds along the riverbanks and boathouses cheer them on. We woke up slightly late and had to sneak out of the college as there was a garden party on the quad that we had definitely not paid to go to. We went around Christ Church and took a path at the back to the boathouses; it cuts through their cattle fields (each Christ Church student may graze their own cow on the college's pasture and get its milk every morning- seriously, people still do this). We got to Pembroke's boathouse, which is conveniently fitted with its own bar, and settled down to enjoy the day's races with a few pitchers of Pimm's. The Pembroke 1st boat came in a bittersweet 3rd place - retaining its high position among Oxford crews while losing to the despised Christ Church and Oriel.
We took dinner at an Indian place in town. I wondered why a plate of curry cost something like 13 pounds and soon found out why. The restaurant operates with a BYOB policy and it was packed with rowers nursing bottles of wine and flinging pennies at each other while making toasts and drinking out of a very old shoe. The very-stressed staff was yelling at each other in Hindi as they attempted to manage the destruction: shattered glasses, curses hurled between teams, climbing over tables.
From there it was on to Club Freud - a centuries-old church-turned-bangin' nightclub that the Pembroke team had rented out. Let's just say my list of grad schools was significantly narrowed this weekend.

And talking about cows, I couldn't resist: Big Cow