ACU COBA in Oxford 2010 (unofficial blog)

My MIS class had the chance to visit the place where BMW Mini Coopers were manufactured and assembled and then shipped out to the dealers to be sold. Now, I had always had an admiration for the Mini Cooper and would always get a kick out of seeing one driving on the streets of America. But after seeing all the team members and robots put together and assemble a mini cooper, I believe I would be speaking for my entire MIS class when I say that I really wanted to just go out, buy a mini cooper and drive one! :-) The tour itself was very interesting to observe. There were so many robots putting together the bare skeleton of three types of Mini Coopers. Each car had to be measured precisely to make sure that the size was accurate. If it wasn't then everything would come to a halt and then the car would be removed. Our tour guide was very friendly and helped make the experience very unique and enjoyable for us. Afterwards our class got to observe the assembling of the Mini Cooper when it receives the windows, tires, dashboard, lights, engine and each step of way included workers performing tests on every single component to make sure that everything was functioning properly! It felt really amazing to see the finished car drive away to the various countries in the world where it would be sold and I'm hoping that someday in the future, I will get to drive away in a Mini-Cooper!

Today was a great day. I had the privilege of spending a day in London with two awesome guys, Charles Levitte and Mike Aguilar. However, it started off a little slow. The night before we had planned to be ready to go at 6:50 am, so I set the alarm to my watch to wake me up at 6:00. Although, I didn’t factor that I’m still adjusting to the time change. Mike ended up having to wake me up at 6:45 from my coma. But due to speediness, we were on the streets before 7:00 to walk to the train station to catch the 7:30 train to London. Once we arrived at London, we immediately immersed ourselves in a crash course in the London underground. After 30 seconds of learning the ropes, for a second I forgot that I wasn’t from London because of how good we were getting around. We were able to see so much in just one day. We went to St. Paul’s Cathedral, changing of the guards at Buckingham, Harrods, Big Ben, Parliament, the London Eye, and Westminster Abbey. I was pretty pleased with how we did. We then returned back to Oxford around 7:00 pm and had some amazing conversations that will stick with me for the rest of my life. I felt like I truly experienced what study abroad was all about, creating close friendships and experiencing a different life style with people that by only studying abroad brought together. It was the perfect way to end a productive day.

I had always thought that it would be cool to have an experience similar to "Home Alone" where the family is frantically running to make a plane. The irony is that I actually said something similar in the London Stanstead Airport before things went really wrong. Our flight had problems from the beginning. When we first arrived, one of the members of our group that was traveling to Ireland with us realized that he had forgotten to bring his boarding pass. Most people would assume that the airline would simply print another one with the proper ID but not RyanAir. That member had to run over to a wifi hot spot and try to print his boarding pass again. We were already running late for our plane so the rest of the group decided to go on ahead through the airport security and find the gate while Seth, the person had forgotten his ticket hurried and met us there. We started to really worry though when they started having all the passengers board the flight and we did not see Seth. We all got in line to board the plane and tell the workers that we had one more member coming. That was when things went really crazy. We got up to the ticket scanner so that we could get on the plane when the lady taking the tickets looked at our tickets and then looked up disapproving. She told us that we were supposed to get our passports checked and approved back at the ticket counter and that she could not let us on the plane until we had done so. Panic struck. For a split second, we were all in shock that we were probably going to miss our flight until we found a sense of urgency and we all just started running. The airport terminals were pretty big so it took a little over five minutes to make it to the information desk. We told them our situation and a very nice lady told us that she would take us through security backwards and wait for us so that we could hurry. Once we finally made it to the ticket counter, the guy manning it told us immediately that we should give up on our flight and start looking for another. We would not settle for that though. We pleaded with him to just let us try so he reluctantly did his job and stamped our tickets. We turned around and started running for security only to find out that the lady who was supposed to take us through security had left us. Somehow, we managed to cut a long line of people (while apologizing to each individually) and rushed through security. But it could not be that easy. The airport security people decided to search Tyler’s bag so Tyler and I waited for his bag while we went the girls and Keith onto the plane to try and slow them down. The security man made sure to take his time pulling everything out of the backpack but he finally let us go free. This is where the most epic part happened, the part that I had dreamed about. Tyler and I went through the airport at a full sprint, jumping over bags, sliding between people, and yelling excuse me the entire way. As we reached the final hallway, we hear over the loud speaker that boarding for the flight to Cork Ireland is now closing. When we finally reached the area where our gate was, the ticket lady was just about to close the gate when she saw us…and smiled. We jogged over to her, gave her our tickets, and she made sure to tell us that we had no idea how lucky we were to make that flight. As we walked on the plane, I felt like everybody should stand up and give us a standing ovation. Instead, we got fist pumps and high fives from the five other members of our group as we set out for a fun weekend in Ireland.

Saturday, after our early, hectic flight to Cork, Ireland, a few friends and I decided to go visit Blarney Castle right outside of Cork. Our friendly cab driver was happy to take us out there and acted as a tour guide to us as we made the short trip through town. We were in awe as we drove through the beautiful green hills and finally arrived at the Castle. Because of our early flight, we were some of the first to enter the castle grounds that day, making us feel like we had the entire place to ourselves for discovery. We crawled through the narrow tunnels of the dungeon and took pictures on the bridge by the stream that ran by the castle before making our way to the top. From outside on the bottom of the castle, you can see high up on a ledge on the top, the couple of bars that are supposed to protect anyone from falling when kissing the legendary Blarney Stone. As we made our way up the tiny stairways and went through the small stone rooms, I couldn’t help but think that this would not pass city codes back in Abilene. Finally we reached the top where, the views were unbelievable. We walked over to a nice Irish man that was waiting to lower us down (upside-down and backwards) to kiss the magical stone that was hidden in the castle in the 1400’s but had been around much longer than that. Looking down before I kissed the stone might have been a bad idea, but it made it even more worth it afterwards. I can now say that I have been given the “gift of gab” which gives me the gift of eloquent speaking. Kissing the Blarney Stone, and more importantly exploring the beautiful fern garden, poison garden, castle, and other grounds of Blarney Castle has been my favorite European experience yet.

-Tyler Sutphen (6/7/2010)