Life Experience Junkie

There is something about cobblestone: it tells a story. Before an experience in Oxford a few summers ago, my petite Texan feet had never even experienced the way that cobblestone streets contact nerves in your feet that you didn't even know you had. I did not know what it would be like to feel the stories of centuries, people, and culture all around me: not just in the pebbles under my feet but in the mustard glow emitted by buildings made of Bath-stone through most hours of those smiling summer days. My Oxford experience began when my fourteen-year old self hopped off a plane to meet one hundred and fifty excited faces from around the globe in Corpus Christi College. We explored buildings and markets, shopped at eclectic stores, listened to choirs, and absorbed Oxford's culture as well as each other's--they encouraged me to eat food that I could not pronounce and sing songs that I had never heard before. I remember being lost with an Armenian friend of mine (who I still keep up with today) in the rain. As we waded through narrow ancient alleys looking for an overhang to protect us, I heard something beautiful. I walked towards the sound, and detected a harmonious violin ringing in the air. We pulled open a creaking door, which seemed to be disguised as part of a wall, to discover a beautiful, small chapel where a girl was practicing her violin. This chapel became my spot of solace: I returned to play the old piano, practice my Shakespeare for our visit to "The Globe," and sing at the top of my lungs for an audience of stained glass windows. However, my memories of that summer go beyond that chapel. They go beyond holes that I still find in my clothes from failed (and successful) attempts to climb the gates of Christ Church Meadow after it had closed, or pieces of napkins I saved from my favorite cafes, or sketches of the Radcliffe Camera from the top of Saint Mary's Tower. My memories live in the people that I met, the smells I absorbed, and the stories that I felt while roaming about that dusty and magnificent city. Sometimes as I walk through Stanford University, I pretend that I am still holding a peanut butter, milk chocolate chip cookie from "Ben's" and taking that cookie to "Moo-Moo's" to request that it be made into a milkshake. Although I no longer carry with me those sweets from Oxford's covered market, I carry the same genuine curiosity and admiration of exploration. I can still feel the cobblestone under my feet as I embrace each day.