For the past few days, I've been hanging out with two friends from the States: Joe and Morgen. It was great to meet them — we had only corresponded by email and phone before, but they were every bit as charming, funny and interesting as I expected. I was trying to do my tour guide bit, but managed to be inaccurate to the tune of a few centuries either way on the dates of old buildings and colleges. History was never my strong point... I was surprised by how much I learned about Oxford. I've been here 12 years now, but there's apparently still a lot that I don't know about what I think of as my home town. I suppose it's always the same: you don't really appreciate your surroundings until you see them through someone else's eyes.