Blogs from Oxfordshire, England, United Kingdom, Europe - page 44

Geo: 51.6561, -0.962989Today Jen, Holly (her house mate) and I caught the bus to Oxford. Oxford is the other famous university in England. The first colleges were built in the 13th century. The town is full of colleges- beautiful old buildings. There are 39 colleges and 17,000 students. The first thing we did was go to St Marys church and climbed to the top of the 14th century tower. From here we could see the Radcliffe Camera and many of the colleges. The Radcliffe Camera is a circular library built in 1748. We then went on a walking tour of the town and saw courtyards of some of the many colleges. After our tour we had lunch and walked around the town again. We also saw another replica of Venice's Bridge of Sighs- this one wasn't ... read more

It has been a busy four days at RAF Lyneham. I am part of a Canadian military contingent conducting an assessement into the RAF C130 Hercules operation at RAF Lyneham. We are here to determine if the RAFwho are flying the new Hercules, called the Super Hercules (J-model variant) have the proper training equipment and methodology to produce tactical aircrews (we are also checking out the same on the maintenance side). We've called the mission a Training Needs Analysis. We have been here once before looking at the RAF schoolhouse under a Search And Rescue mandate. That project was supposedly on a fast track until the politicians stalled it - political hot potato apparently (read as unacceptable risk for a minority government). The entire project staff was then assigned to the Hercules replacemnet project and we've ... read more

Getting to Oxford took quite a long time, as the train must have made about 15 stops. I got to see quite a bit of the middle of England though! Once there I went exploring as best I could, since everything had closed and it was dark and cold. That night I met some interesting people in the hostel, including a guy from Zimbabwe, who told me of the country's condition and how his friends, family, everyone has left. He was going around Europe trying to decide basically where he wants to live and try to make a new life. Also met Larry, a very nice British guy, who was originally from Oxford and as such on the second day took me on a tour of the city. I of course spent a lot of time ... read more

To everyone who followed our marvellous year long trip around the word may we wish you all A VERY VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS AND A PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR. Some of you will be receiving standard cards but we do not have (or have lost) addresses for many of you. We would love it if you coud forward your addresses, phone numbers to us at kenbeveridge@hotmail.co.uk to enable us to keep in touch with you. Cheers, Ken & Linda... read more

Today marks the end of my time here in Oxford. I've been away from home for exactly 100 days. I've made countless friends, taken a bazillion pictures, made memories to last a lifetime, and had the time of my life. But now comes the hardest part of all: saying goodbye. It's Friday morning and while most people don't leave until tomorrow morning, some have already left. Just this morning I had to say goodbye to both of my roommates, Liz and Cate. They are both going to Scotland today, upon which Liz returns to the states on Tuesday while Cate will be traveling around Europe since she is coming back to Oxford in January. Saying goodbye to them was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. Sure, we'll keep in touch. Yeah, we'll ... read more