What Oxford Taught Me... - The Five to Nine Traveller

Spring is upon us so I best tell you all about Oxford, a beautiful UK city that is splendid, especially in the Spring and Summer months. (Sorry for my hiatus I had an impending all consuming exam to sit)

I moved to Oxford in the summer of 2010 with no family, no friends, no significant other, no nothing….if you think solo travel is scary try solo relocation! (Sidenote: I have yet to properly solo travel only solo day trips still playing chicken weird huh?)

I hit Oxford and woah my life slowed down, I mean screechingly train tracks so! There were no dinners, outings and dance nights to rush off to anymore. And in that void I spent the first couple of weeks either:

a) rushing back to London at the weekends

b) talking on the phone to friends and

c) watching a whole load of Family Guy late into the night.

This obviously couldn’t continue for a long time so soon I did less of those activities and decided to enjoy the beauty of Oxford.

I ditched buses because they were not a patch on TFL and took to walking everywhere and boy I saw Oxford’s beauty (and maintained my weight rather than gain lol). I noticed the regal architecture and nature that little bit more and marvelled at it!

Beautiful frozen wintery cobwebs often cheered me up enroute to work — The beautiful frozen wintery cobwebs cheered me up enroute to work

Students punting on a summer’s day on River Cherwell

University Church of St Mary the Virgin in Springtime

Hertford Bridge designed by Sir Thomas Jackson is a skywalk linking two parts of Hertford College. It is often referred to as the Bridge of Sighs because of its similarity to the famous Bridge of Sighs in Venice.

I took up the Argentine tango and Spanish classes both spurring me on to add Argentina on my wanderlist. I attended a lot of cultural events on my own…including the Annual Argentine Tango festival held every year and some music gigs at the Bullingdon on Cowley Road.

Watch Yanina Quinones & Neri Piliu dancing beautifully below….

[wpvideo jQM61K40]

I found my long lost cousin blogger Adoredee who took me to a Rubix cube party at St Catherine’s college (my only regret is that I didn’t have you sooner in my life from childhood) and met some amazing new people in my life through housemates and church.

10502174_10154330625480343_5352296447392477798_n — Dee and me!

I also paid a visit to a few colleges when friends and family came a-visiting.

Oh and sunsets I mean did I mention the sunsets…my phone became full of them!! It became my favourite part of the day. I could actually dedicate an entire post to them (I won’t, don’t worry).

Always various colours to catch in the Oxfordian sky

Thank you Oxford for slowing life down so I could actually focus and take it ALL in.

3 Comments

The Bold Brunette (@BoldxBrunette)

29/04/2017 5:27 pm

So amazing that you made the move without knowing anyone!! So seriously admirable. And sounds like it worked out perfectly with everyone who visited you and all of the beautiful things you saw 🙂 Great post!