Archive for the ‘Adventure’ Category
To celebrate the end of full term (the study period for undergraduates), a couple of friends and I took a long weekend in Copenhagen, Denmark to see the sights, get a taste of real snow, and visit the Christmas markets. We visited Tivoli in all of its holiday splendor, took a tour of the Danish royal crown jewels, saw The Little Mermaid and a number of other icons, visited The Marble Church, ogled the Verdensur astronomical clock, and waged battle against the cold weather with warm tea and Gløgg.
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Today was another day of cycling out to Bicester to do some gliding. This time, I took a few pictures along the way. I got three flights in (practicing winch launch failures — techniques for handling a cable that snaps during the launch) and cycled back to Wolfson before sunset! The ride itself is very nice: the larger roads have bicycle lanes or paths, and the smaller country roads (and their associated animals) are quite charming. More pictures below!
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“A desperate disease requires a dangerous remedy.” — Guy Fawkes
To celebrate Guy Fawkes Night, Wolfson College put on a fireworks show. It turned out to be a lot larger than I expected. About 200 spectators were about 75 yards from the launch site across the Wolfson Harbor. The fireworks lasted 20 minutes, and saw several minutes with the entire sky lit up.
About a week later, a friend of a friend organized the second half of the traditional November celebrations, a bonfire night. In addition to a roaring fire, the night brought mulled wine, some more fireworks, and excellent company.
One of the best parts of November in general was that any given night, there was a decent chance of fireworks randomly going off outside my window. Rhyme or no, celebrations here do not last just one night.
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As the sun rose this morning, a stalwart group of new Oxford University Gliding Club members took the X5 bus out to the Bicester airfield to try our hands at gliding. We all spent about twelve hours out at Bicester, and got in five flights (about half an hour in the sky) and learned how to help out with towing, dragging, and launching the sailplanes.
Compared to powered flight, the time in the air was certainly shorter and the very abrupt “takeoff” of the winch launch takes some getting used to. There is a more peaceful feel to the flight, as there is no engine noise and the local air flow and ground features play much more prominently into the flight. I look forward to being able to take longer flights when the weather allows for climbing in thermals.
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One of the (many) joys of flying is the ability to escape to magical places that would be hard to reach any other way. For the Fourth of July, Andrea and I traveled to Ocracoke, North Carolina. This beautiful island is near the tip of the outer banks and has a lovely little airport. And our Ocracoke adventures were second to none. From gigantic ice cream cones to parasailing and jet skiing, with a little bit of “beach cruiser” biking in between, this really was an island paradise.
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There comes a point in every MD/DPhil student’s life when that student must, in semi-formal attire, play tug-of-war with a Great Dane.
A group loosely affiliated through the Penn State Nittany Divers wind up in Key West every New Year enjoying some diving and festivities. New Year 2010 was no different, and in addition to fantastic diving and amazing company, this year had some new flying in store. Sadly only as a passenger in the open-air biplane (WACO UPF-7), but I did get to take an acrobatic lesson in the S2C Pitts with “General” Freddie Cabanas of the Conch Republic Air Force.
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It is pretty rare to get a snow day from medical school, but that’s just what happened on this fortuitous day. It was perfect timing, as a friend from out of town was visiting (and in fact got snowed into Durham), so we explored the campus-made-winter-wonderland, enjoyed our time off, and took a few pictures. A few enterprising undergrads had even made a snowman!
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