Oxford on a Saturday

'Twas a beautiful day yesterday, and there was nothing on my schedule, so I did a wee bit of exploring in my new locale. Turns out, however, there is quite a bit of tourist action here, especially on blue-sky weekends. Now I know.

It is a lovely/beautiful/unique town though, 

so I completely understand why so many people flock here:

lessons from London--

It seems that I'm always typing up these "Lessons from…" posts. I guess I've just really taken the "live-and-learn" saying to heart. Today's lesson came was taught to me during my sad attempt to catch a train to Oxford.

carpe the heck out of diem.

I have arrived in Oxford!

My multitude of orientations (international student, graduate student, college member, program induction, matriculation...) have been keeping me from truly exploring the town [which is...amazing, by the way. I can already tell]. One day soon, I'll {hopefully} be able to venture around with my trusty ol' Canon PowerShot and send you some purrrty pitchers.

In the meantime, here's a quotation/passage/excerpt. It's from a recent high school commencement address [props to KK (sp?) for bringing it to my attention], and I was reminded of it today when I found a pencil on the ground.

Photographs and tourists.

Tourists.
Natural phenomena from every corner of the earth venturing to every corner of the earth.

One thing that unites us tourists is the camera. Pictures are taken of anything and at all locales. Today, I laughed at an Asian man taking a picture of a totally normal-looking squirrel. Moments later, I took a picture of a plaque that said "Charles Dickens" on it. Just because.

But sometimes, it's not just pictures of stuff that are desired, but evidence that you were actually there. When traveling solo, there's not much to be done about this besides taking an awkward my-arm-is-extended-as-far-as-possible self-shot. These are both terrible and embarrassing. I advise against them. (It's for this reason that you'll seldom find me in pictures on this blog). When traveling with a companion, however, there are a few approaches to take:

1. If it's a remote enough location, and there is something convenient nearby, use the self-timer. It takes some trial + error, but is generally a good method.
2. Take turns getting shots of each other.
3. Decide to trust that passersby will not run off with your camera, own up to being an annoying tourist, and ask someone to take your picture.

Number three is what my friend and I opted for yesterday, since our whole intention was to get proof that we met up, and because we were at Parliament and the place was not ideal for setting up a self-timer.

To London!

Yesterday (or two days ago, depending on how you figure in all that time-zone-travel stuff), I made the journey across the Pond. [yes, I capitalized Pond.] The journey was rather uneventful—and I certainly don't mind "uneventful" when it comes to air travel. I was only woken up by turbulence once, which, by the way, is the scariest thing ever if it's the first bout of turbulence and you're asleep when it starts.

{{Explanation: For me, airplanes are the innocent-until-proven-guilty type. That is, I'm not one to sit in the seat, clutching the armrests at takeoff. I don't bother with making myself scared until I have reason to be scared. So when I'm fast asleep, and the plane starts shaking, that's when OhmygoshImgonnadie races through my head. Luckily, 'twas uneventful, as I said.}}

When I found my seat on the plane, I was kind of bummed out that my window view would be halfway blocked by a wing...

But I quickly got over it when I realized:

So...Oxford?

I know it's been a while. 

Turns out that getting ready to leave my country for a year has filled my time with things besides blogging. I do apologize. (Kind of.)

In a few short days (THREE! AHH!), I'll get on a plane to London, where I'll hang with my brother for a few days before heading up to Oxford. I have no idea what my London plans are, so keep an eye out for updates from there next week. As for Oxford, here's the [very] general outline: