The Weekend

This weekend, I finally went to a proper pub in Oxford for a beer festival. Those of you who know me know I am not a fan of any beer except Guinness, but I thought I would give it a shot and try some of the local flavor. I am pleased to report that the beers I had tasted were really good~ Unfortunately, I don't know which two I drank (there were 40 different ones), but the night wasn't a complete bust of me pretending to enjoy beer and reluctantly drinking it. 

The place I went was called the Turf Tavern and it is tucked away off of some random street that if it wasn't for this guy, I would have never have found:

Here is the link to the other dazzling pics of this minstrel-slash-sign post. These pictures are during the day, but I went over around 8PM because I was waiting for my long anticipated delivery from Sainsbury (which went fine except the guy who delivered my food was Methusola and I felt really bad watching him carry these huge crates from the truck!). This is one of the alleys I had to walk down to get to this bar:

I thought Jack the Ripper was going to jump out from the shadows at any moment, but then I remembered I was in Oxford in the year 2008, so I was fine. Walking around quiet, dark streets on my own is something I have to get used to. No one would even think to take this way in New York unless they had a death wish!

On Saturday night, I went to a Brazilian BBQ joint down the road from me. It was nice, and the meat was good, but if you have been in the US, the frequency of the meat delivery was not on point. The Brits show such restraint! I remember when I went for my birthday years ago, and we couldn't stop the meat avalanche. 

Not much else to report. I did watch some Mad Men, which I have become hooked on. There is the one episode in season 2 (not a spoiler, really) where there are some British ad execs, and the way they were portrayed was ridiculous! Perhaps back in the 50s British people used to say "CAPITAL! CAPITAL!" all smarmy, but I haven't heard one person say that yet. Should I start saying it? Also, there was this line where one of the Americans says "You can't trust the Brits." I wonder where that comes from? Should I be heeding the sage words of Roger Sterling? Another thing that I thought was funny was their reaction coming back from a trip to the West Coast. It's exactly how I feel about California...too slow, NOT New York. I am glad this is a feeling New Yorkers have passed on for generations.