« Moving | Main | Wordless Wednesday »
January 14, 2008
On Oxford
The UTC newspaper e-mailed me earlier today asking if I wanted to provide a quote about my experience in Oxford last summer. I'm sure they'll only use a sentence or two, but I sent them the paragraph below. I hadn't really tried before this to explain my experience since I got back, and thus gained a little perspective on everything. I thought I'd share the whole bit here. I guess we'll see what they publish.
The Oxford trip, to me, was perfect, because it combined so many experiences and opportunities. On one hand, there was the great opportunity to take two really interesting classes that played off of one another marvelously. Then you add in the field trips Doctors White and Hampton planned and led that took advantage of the fact we were in England, like going to the church that Milton went to in London and The Banqueting house, as well as must-see sites that tied in to our studies more loosely, like the Tower of London. I've said it before and I'll say it again-- those field trips really took advantage of the location and brought Tudor-era history and Milton's writing to life in a significant way, because we weren't limited like we are studying those kinds of topics here at UTC, in the States, to words on a page. You saw that everything really happened, and made a real impact, one that's lasted into today and is still considered important enough that there are sites to visit. Last, you consider the free weekends we had to travel, which was a great opportunity for many students on the trip who had never been abroad before. The long weekends meant we could further take advantage of the location by choosing what we most wanted to see on our down time. I've been lucky enough to travel more than most, but I was thrilled to finally have the chance to travel on my own. My second weekend on the trip I took off to see Dover, Broadstairs, and London all by myself-- a self-guided tour of Charles Dickens' old haunts. There were so many adventures I got myself into, from hopping on a bus that seemed to be going in the right geographic direction and ending up on an impromptu tour of English villages to having to run into some charity shops to buy sweaters since I hadn't packed enough warm clothes. On another weekend I went some other students to Wales, and we split up for a couple of hours so they could see a castle and I could go to a World War II museum in a nearby village. We didn't know the town I was headed to was on the same train route we'd been using the whole time, and we agreed that if I wasn't back in time to catch the train to Oxford they should go on without me. It was a great moment when I was literally running back to the train station, fearing I'd miss coordinated trains when I realized the one I was getting on was simply the route home, one stop up from my friends. They were looking for me on the platform and had the gloomiest faces, thinking they were going to have to abandon me in the wilds of Wales, and I got to surprise them by already being on the train. It was a great crash course in organic traveling, sans tour bus or guides, with a LOT of improvisation. All in all, I learned more that summer in Oxford than in any other five week period of my life, both academically, thanks to Doctors White and Hampton's fabulous teaching and leadership, and personally. You don't know the meaning of self-reliance until you're wandering the rural roads of Wales as it grows dark, is threatening to rain, and you've just been told that your hostel is eight miles away. It was a great summer for getting to know myself, as well as the other students and the professors.
| By Spike | 05:30 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://chattablogs.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/44619
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference On Oxford:
Comments
I recognize a lot of my own experiences of being a tourist in Europe in your description. I'm where it really happened, and it tickles me to know that the place or building in a history book is real, and I'm on that historical ground. I'm not as courageous as you (not even when I was your age), but I still came off as such in 2006, when I surprised the rest of my group by riding Vienna's metro system by myself. The others weren't used to metros from home, so hadn't taken a chance. Me, I love the things. London taught me well. :-)
Posted by: Keera at January 16, 2008 01:22 AM
I 100% agree with you about the metro, Keera. I can't get enough of the London Underground. I remember Vienna's system being pretty nice as well. I remember being so envious when I heard that my 14 year old cousin who lives in New York City was allowed to ride the subway by herself, even though I'm several years older, just because it seems such a compliment to how city-savvy city dwellers are, and I felt so left out of all the subway fun!
Posted by: Spike at January 16, 2008 04:55 PM