Summer Eights
At Merton College with Caroline, Emily, and Paul My last stop on last week’s European adventure was Oxford. After meeting up with my former housemate Caroline in London on Friday night, we went up to Oxford on Saturday. We met Paul and had lunch with him at his room in Merton College, where he is a Junior Research Fellow (post-doc). After having coffee with Mark Schaan (who I met at Waterloo), I went down to the river for the aforementioned Summer Eights boat races, where I met up with Caroline and Paul as well as another former housemate, Emily (we’re all pictured at left). This year it rained, so it was less busy than the last time I was at Eights.
Crowds along the Isis The rules for Summer Eights are simple enough. Thirteen boats are lined up one after another with about 1 boat length between each of them. Each boat’s goal is to “bump” the boat in front of them (the boats don’t have to physically touch, you could just pass the front of your boat past the rear of the next boat). If you bump, you both pull out of the race and switch positions in the next race. There is one race a day for four days, and positions carry over from year to year.
Pembroke rowing Because the river is long and winding, and because the boat houses are only at the end of the race course, you often don’t see much of the race and many boats may have bumped by the time the race gets to you. So no one really ever knows what’s going on. The only way to even know who’s rowing past you is to look at the pattern on their blades. I only found out who won after getting home and checking the results on the Internet. In the Men’s races, Magdalen maintained their status as Head of the River (first boat), and my college (Pembroke, at left) moved from third to second.
After a relaxing night in Oxford, I flew out of London and returned to Waterloo. A quick and tiring trip: 4 cities in 6 days. No more traveling for a few months now. Time to relax and get some research done. No, really, I will.
I’ve also posted photo galleries from the Belgium and England trips.
