Oxford - a charming town

So, this isn't how I thought our blog would start out. I had this grand scheme of how the blog would be organized and given proper introduction. BUT life's tough, and finding time of execute such grand scheme is tougher. So here goes my first trip to Oxford. Pictures mostly, because I got to run for dinner in like 15 mins. 

(6 hours later)...

The ride from London to Oxford was sunny and beautiful, with rolling hill side and farm land. Much like the Virginia farm land really, but somehow it was much more refreshing. Could be because the view was observed from the left side of the road, or maybe because instead to cows grazing grass, there were lambs. I dont know, I couldn't take pictures tho, my taxi driver was talking to me so passionately, I didn't want to hurt his feeling by being too obvious about not listening to him :)

I stay at the dorm at St Catherines College, Oxford University. My way in was mildly winding but I was delighted, really, of how quaint and charming the place is. 

Here's the dorm room, much nicer than my old one for the records:

Here's the view from my window. Are those houses over there cute?

Here's how they look from the street:

Back in the room: an hour before I left for the UK,Tim dug through every box in the house (there are A LOT of boxes in our house) to find me a plug converter. Turned out the UK uses different sockets than the Nethelands, so the converter we have is no good. blah blah blah, long story short, this is the concoction it took to have a charging station around here:

Have you seen a $32 socket converter? Well now you have. And I thought I'd just splurge to get a everything-convert-to-everything gadget.... phhhft! That's TWO converters chaining up before we'd have a working solution.

Moving on.

So I wont pretend to be cool and say I've seen anything like this before. This town (the Brits call it a city) is quite fascinating. a vast majority of the building around the center are old old old. There were cars, walkers, cyclists seemingly all over the place sharing the road (walkers walk in the middle of the road a lot). And the fact that they drive on the "wrong" side of the road sorta help the twilight-zone effect this town has on me.

This is one of the more busy corner of town. See how there's no stripe/paint one the road very much? Add the "wrong" side driving makes for a very confused Hanh trying to cross the street and not knowing which side to look first.

So when I'm not cautiously trying to cross some sort of street, I was in constant risk of walking into someone, because my eyes were no where near where I walk. They were up in these quaint allies, colorful building and all of the magnificent details on the old colleges: 

The weather was grey and windy. Not far from what I had expected from an English Spring. My hope is that comes Friday, when I have more time to walk around, I shall be granted with some sunshine. This town would be even more beautiful

This is the gate to New College. Isn't it beautiful?

I'm not sure what this establishment is, I will have to do more research.

I love how all these narrow allies draw me in everytime I walk by them. 

Most of the times when I do walk down the allies, I'd find another magnificent looking building at the end, or a rows of unexpected little shops like this drool-inspiring candy shop. I'm not a chocolate lover by any mean, their candy came close to changing that.

After about an hour of walking around, I'm sufficiently cold and my nose started to run. Time to head back and get ready for company-wide dinner. Interesting fact I noticed, a lot of the boutique shops were closing at 5!!!! Weird, don't you think? But come to dwell on it a little, it may make some sense. The Brits around here take their drinking and pubs very seriously. Maybe they need to get going with the dinner early and clear the evening for drinking at the pub. I find that talking about beer and pubs is a good way to break the ice with my British colleagues.

Here are some of the beautiful things I was able to capture on my way back to the dorm:

Street sign with character

You can't get anymore England than a double deck bus running on the left side of the road and a red phone booth. Well at least I can't.

And these are two of my favourites. There is just beauty in every corner I looked around here:

This pic is the winner because (if you dont already know) yellow is my FAVOURITE color: door ways to student apartments.

Finally, if you wonder where I am in all these pictures, as I certainly will wonder the same thing a few years from now, the answer would be this is what happens when one travel alone. I would become rather an annoying tourist if I had asked for picture taking favor everytime I see something I want my picture to be taken with, which in this case is usually about every 10 steps. 

But just to prove that I was here. Here's a picture of myself, taken by myself, where my face blocked up the whole view. THIS is not an effective measure. 

Conferences for the next three days, then I'll be back with more pretty pics of the places I venture to. 

Thanks for reading guys. Hope all is well.

Hanhie the Vu.