Apparently, our past selves, when planning the future, were actually very considerate and remembered we would be raving it up the night before and therefore awarded us ample time to wake up well-rested and ready to go for our ... TWELVE.27pm train. Le sigh.
Whatever. This way we could spend more time with Amina in the morning and wake everyone up at a decent hour to say goodbye. And off we went! We took the "free" bus which cost 50p to the train station, bought some food and sat down on our platform (4) for our Cross Country train to Bournemouth (stopping at Oxford along the way).
We sat down in coach C amongst a sea of OAPs (old age pensioners) and marvelled at the fact that we were indeed the only people under the age of 50 on this coach. Except for the infant but he doesn't count.
The train journey was ... interesting. I believe the caffeine we had injected (read: drank in tea) earlier that morning was coming into full effect, to what I imagine would have been the despair of all the old people around us. Not that we took notice. Because we definitely played the Alphabet game with diseases as the topic. It dawned on me that the people around us probably had half the diseases and conditions we were calling out. Including 'I' for 'I cannot see' and 'J' for 'Jaffa cake.'
The rest of the train journey consisted of Anisah trying to stealthily take pictures of me before I'd actually fallen asleep and an old man shaking his head at her saying, 'That's not very nice.' Good ol' chap, having my back. Then I used Anisah's pashmino/a/i scarf to disguise myself as a ninja.
Why yes, I am in university! How could you possibly assume otherwise? Then I performed a spot on rendition of 'Bounce' by Timbaland, which goes as follows:
BOUNCE,
like yo ass got the hiccuuuups
BOUNCE,
like we be ridin in mah pickuuuuup
BOUNCE.
Anisah has incriminating evidence in the form of a pixelated video on her phone. Woop. The remaining bits of the journey were filled with us yelling SHEEP and COWS whenever we saw either of these species out our windows.
We arrived, eventually, mid-afternoon in Oxford and walked our way to George Street to the Eurobar, our hotel. We thought it would basically be a step up from a hostel in that we got our own rooms but still had to share a bathroom. It was a bar downstairs,
and up three flights of stairs was our room, 14 (there was no 13!), the very last room on the very top floor.
... and it was amazing. It was about 3x the size of a room at Gabs, bright and sunny with three windows, a little TV, a sink, a wardrobe, a dresser, two bedside tables, a double bed AND a twin bed. We could fit three people in there, the extra space being for boys, Anisah says. Clearly.
So we got all settled in and then promptly left the hotel to explore Oxford. Our hotel was just down the street from my college's street (St Pete's, whatwhat) so I dragged Anisah there first, before the college closed to visitors. I had found this website a little while ago called igotanenvelope.com and I decided I'd leave my own in Oxford. I left it, of course, on the Steps.
I put Anisah's address on it so I really hope someone picked it up and sends something back. Anisah promises not to open it till I get back, if it ever arrives.
Afterwards, we continued to galavant across Oxford, walking pretty much over every inch of the city and that is no exaggeration. By the last day we'd probably tread on every street at least 5 times, covering and doing as much in three days as regular people would do in a week. But we are not regular people. So we saw Keble College and Jesus College and ... Oh, and then we went to have dinner at Chutney's, only the greatest Indian restaurant to exist anywhere. It was delightful, as usual.
And then we frolicked some more, stopping in Christ Church meadows for a bit, taking a walk around the fields and river / creek, running away from swans, calling out to the ducks, hugging some trees, you know the drill.
Afterwards, we were both kind of tired so we decided to head back to the hotel and have a nap. So we turned on the tv and let it play in the background but it kept getting louder and louder and all Anisah remembers hearing is "YOU'RE TOO YOUNG TO BE HAVING SEX" and something about blood in salad. She was not half-dreaming, all this actually occurred on the show -- I know because I was fully awake. And then I turned off the tv so we could sleep. Next thing I know, Anisah's telling me I need to put my pyjamas on, like I was a small child falling asleep in my clothes. She actually said directly to me, all sleepily, 'Noor, you need to get your pyjamas on.' And then we looked at the clock. It was 1.30am. We definitely got into the bed around 9.30pm. So for the next half hour all we could do was exclaim how incredulous it was that it was 1.30am. Even when it was 2am we just kept saying, 'How is it 1.30?!' And then we got into our respective beds and went to sleep. We woke up from time to time to hear the drunken ramblings of Oxfordians outside. I swear someone was getting beat up too.
We woke up the next morning determined not to go fall asleep like losers at 9.30pm. But we were well-rested now so it wasn't as likely to happen. We started off the day with breakfast in the hotel and then scampered off to roam again. I really can't list all the places we visited because we literally went everywhere. High Street, Broad Street, Cornmarket, George St, St Aldate's, Parks Road.. There wasn't a piece of cobbled stone or concrete we left unwalked.
We visited some more colleges -- Magdalen (the one I applied to) and Lincoln and Pembroke -- and walked all the way to the end of the bridge, watching the punters and laughing at the price. Because, essentially, that's what we'd be paying to fall into the dirty river and drown. Or get raped by swans.
By then it was way past the deadline for some G&D's so back to the other end of High St we went to enjoy some delightful Oxford Blue.
Then off we went to the University Parks to just sit and lounge around and do nothing because it was an absolutely gorgeous day. We wrote some postcards too and Anisah found a hot guy playing football shirtless infront of us to stalk. Obsessively stalk. I'm not even exaggerating. I have wayyyy to many pictures of this guy on my camera and I don't even know who he is. And then we saw a man with a giant green head and we didn't want him to offer us the juice for charity he was selling because we were a) frightened and b) likely to burst out laughing in his giant green face if he tried to talk to us.
After a while, we decided to head back to the hotel to drop some of our crap off and then head back out for a night of debauchery. In this time, I noticed the back of my legs were bright pink and sunburnt. Since I was wearing a dress, there was a perfect line cut a little above my knee and it looked like someone just took a paint roller and painted a single thick line on the back of my legs. Anisah found this absolutely hysterical. Le sigh.
So off we went back into the setting afternoon sun. We didn't do much, just walked around bits we hadn't visited before. We sat on some steps on Broad Street, we sat on some benches near some water near the club called the Bridge. There wasn't much to be doing, really. Oxford shuts down, as most English cities do, around 5pm. Then all the pubs get lively and rowdy and the brawls start happening. Once it was about 11.30 or so, we decided to head back since there wasn't anything else to do. Unfortunately, all the excitement of Oxford seemed to be concentrated on one single street, our hotel's street. Anisah and I have decided we are not fond of George St at night. We were walking by a pub where we saw a man lying face down on the sidewalk and another guy leaning over him and a police car came rushing up from behind us and stopped right next to us. We just kept shoving through the crowds, laughing in fear and at the ridiculousness of what was happening.
As quickly as we could, we got safely into our hotel and went to bed.
The next morning, we checked out and left our bags behind the bar before heading out to visit the science museum and Pitt Rivers, the crazy old historical artifacts museum. It was the first time Pitt Rivers was open since I'd last gone in 2006 so it was really awesome to see all the great exhibits again. They have shrunken heads! Afterwards, since they were close, we headed to the University Parks just to crash for a bit. Then Anisah wanted to get a giant cookie from Bonjour cafe (my preferred cafe for lunch runs) so we went there and got some food, roamed some more. We saw the Radcliffe Camera and St Mary's...
... and then we decided we needed some G&Ds again but we wanted to go to the one where all the ice cream was made. So off we went in search of Little Clarendon Street where we found the original G&D's and had some more ice cream -- THEY HAD BANANARAMA which is my all time favourite flavour ever. everrrr. We had some good times. And then Anisah bought a t-shirt and confused the poor lady at the counter because we weren't asking for ice cream.
Then we went to hang around in a square and went looking for the Ashmolean which was closed but had a small photo exhibity thing set up outside. And then we went to KFC for dinner because everywhere else was closed. Then around 6.15pm we set off to catch our 19.37 train back to Manchester. I'm pretty sure our coach mates hated us again because we played loud giggly games of MASH and I don't even know what and staged a hunting special on my hair and went through alllllll our pictures from the trip and were all around soaked in delirium. Which is how every train ride is meant to be.
It was the best weekend in Oxford since that summer in 2006. I love that city and forever will though I think I've had my fill for the next year or so. So now I can fill my weekend / day trips to other places like Liverpool or Edinburgh or wherever. It absolutely killed us walking around so much because we pretty much had been our feet since that Wednesday adventure ... and then we raved it up Thursday night ... and then did some nonstop walking for three days. I had an ache that started in my foot and then travelled up to my knee and eventually settled in my upper thigh that would reignite every morning, in protest, knowing I was going to torture it today. It was worth it, so so worth it. That weekend was perfect.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment