Oxford/ Basingstoke - Day 8

Day 8 (Saturday 28th Aug 04’):
A late morning and a weather-check later, SD, Yash and I set off in the car to Oxford. The POA was to get to the city, park in the huge parking lot outside it and then board the famous green d-d bus that takes tourists into the city. As SD explained, having huge and free parking lots outside towns and smaller cities, encouraged people to leave behind their cars and use the public transport within the city, a concept frequently observed in the UK. So we set off on a beautiful hour-long drive; ( my deja-vu: drive between Edinburgh and O'Bahn, about a couple of years ago, except that Icchita was missing in this one as she had to work that Saturday) On an alternative note, the drive through the virgin Scottish countryside remains my favourite drive to date. An hour later we found ourselves parked in the parking lot and waiting for the green d-d bus to take us into Oxford City, the city of the dreaming spires as they call it. Entering Oxford, felt like entering an archaic Victorian movie set or the sorts. The town, as I have mentioned before of London, had a very intimate scale, from the streetscape to some of the monuments. Oxford stands true to the same description, but it is a city of a much smaller scale than London. If in London, one sees a collage of the old and the new, in Oxford, one sees the dominance of the old over the new in Oxford. As our tour guide explained to us, the name Oxford was derived through an interesting story: Oxford grew up at the conjunction of two rivers, the Thames and the Cherwell (pronounced Char-well). Indeed, the very reason for Oxford's existence was the presence of a ford for oxen crossing the Thames (that ford was located near the present Folly Bridge). Hence; the name of the city. As we boarded our d-d bus that would take us on a cyclic tour of the city, I had another deja-vu of a time in the past when I last visited an academicia so renowned for its intelligent productions. It was at Harvard Square in Boston. The Oxford experience however topped the Harvard one in the same aspects as any place in Europe tops over that in the US: an authenticity and a rich historical past. Harvard enamours me with its scholarly ambience, Oxford on the other hand, reeks of knowledge. There was a sudden excitement and a glint of recognition in our eyes as the guide rambled upon names as we drove past the various universities and their campuses; Sir Winston Churchill, Agatha Christie, Sir Lewis Carroll, Indira Gandhi, Tony Blair, Rowan Atkinson. There was a whole new meaning to the word "campus" here as each university had sprawling lawns and beautifully kept gardens. My personal favourites were The Trinity College lawns, had I to make a choice of my school in the city. To a self-proclaimed romantic like me, the idea of going to school in this thick cultural context, among lush greenery and high spires with bells tolling was very appealing; almost like living the life of a princess in Victorian times. They say that education at Oxford is considered one of the best even today, simply because the universities here believe in imparting the knowledge needed to think, as against delivering the goods directly in most modern universities. It being a Saturday, we were'nt able to spot too many students in the universities. There were however a lot of young people everywhere else in the city, as guides, shop-keepers and ofcourse waiting on tables in restaurants. I thus; could'nt help but be in awe of this young kid (with a load of piercings over his face) who waited on our table in the restaurant where we had lunch. (He had mentioned earlier, rather casually, that he was studying law at the Trinity College, Oxford.) After two whole rounds on the cyclic bus tour ( the first one to see the city, the second one to experience it) and lunch, we walked through some tourist shops. My dad had mentioned bringing an Oxford dictionary back home, not that it could'nt be found anywhere, but all the same; for authenticity's sake. So I armed myself with two little Oxford Mini dictionaries at the store and then we got onto the d-d bus. The drive back was more beautiful in the dusk as the mountains wore a dull green over their natural blue against the ochre backdrop. After coming back home, a scrumptious spread lay out for my dinner, following which I found myself in an "UNO" competition with little Yash. This was the official end to my UK tour, as tomorrow I was to leave for Mumbai, from LHR at 10:00 am.
So with another long chat with SD and Icchita, we called it a night. Tomorrow SD was to drop me to the airport at 8 am for the next phase of my vacation....in Mumbai, India - my first home ever!
Thus ended one of my most memorable vacations ever, partly as I had experienced the city all by myself for most of the time and partly as I had spent quality time with family and friends after long.
Since I have already interspersed my afterthoughts in the previous notes, I will not surmise them here at the end. Instead I'll leave with the same promise I made to myself when I left London : to return as often as I can!