Punting

So when you get to Oxford (or Cambridge), one of the things you MUST do, weather permitting, is punting.

Punting is the English equivalent of the gondola. Around  four to five people can fit on a single boat, and you can hire a guide--or do it yourselves, which is a cheaper and more fun alternative--to stick a huge metal pole into the river and move the boat by pushing against the bottom. Turning the boat is done by swinging the pole from side to side in the water. The latter was the hardest part, since you tend to overcompensate if you're bearing too far left or right, and then you have to readjust yourself. OR, if you're like me, on your first try, the boat ends up completely horizontal, and you have to make it turn another 90 degrees to right it.

To be good and fast at it, you need to have a lot of upper body strength, which I am clearly lacking. I got the knack of it in the end, but even then I was really, really slow. But smooth. No more bank-hitting.

I was a little dismayed by the views, though. Unlike Cambridge, the river at Oxford doesn't really penetrate the school, so the view wasn't as nice.

I don't really know what the tiny paddle was for, but it was fun to think you were doing something haha

Best part, aside from punting? When we were trying to figure out who was going on which boat, Alex jumped to the side and said, "I'm one boat!" A few people stayed where they were, and others moved to her side. Turns out, all the white people were in one boat, and the Asians were in the other, which led someone to comment on their racist subconscious, haha. The entire time we were punting, whenever our boats bumped each other, we were yelling, "Don't colonize us!"