Posts Tagged With: oxford

Eurotour 2016 Revisited-Signage

Being a Geographer with a bend toward the human/cultural branch I am always alert when abroad for signs, advertising, and graffiti. This has developed a penchant in me to periodically disappear from my tour group, then reappear with few people noticing; I’ve only gotten lost once. The risk of me losing my group is a small price to pay for my forays from the flock.

I tend to look for how different cultures do the same things, just differently.  For example…

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Sounds like a bit of a sticky wicket.

I particularly liked the politeness in London:

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Psychopath?

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Those were on the way to Buckingham Palace as was this one:

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In a post Brexit world I understand why this was only one of two indications there was going to be a vote, the other was to get out of the EU, so at the time I figured the odds were 50/50.

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Good to know.

Waiting for the bus to Oxford….

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I speak the same language, but what’s a food tin?

Favorite Graffiti from London; apropos given Brexit vote and carnivalesque Presidential race…

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In Oxford you can buy…..

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I like that a dentist is above White Stuff even more!Oxford.041Oxford.042

I’m a dog person.

Lastly, it wouldn’t have been a trip abroad without:

Bubba Gumps? Really?

 

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Oxford 2016 Revisited

One of the last things we did before leaving London was take a side trip to Oxford the low light of which was that the bus took longer than scheduled both ways and the second bus broke down. Still, had a good time.

Full disclosure, I usually tune out tour guides even when they’re my colleagues, sorry, but I’d much rather wander and see stuff.  Why is that relevant? Well, because I don’t exactly know what most of these photos are of, though I do know they were all taken in Oxford, England. So here are some things I saw worthy of being photographed:

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Christchurch

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Same, but diorama filter on camera

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Thought it was pretty.

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I call this, “Skeletor”

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“Archie”

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“Dory”

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While in Oxford we stopped and wandered the market above, where I had this:

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Yummy meat pie with mash; why aren’t these shops here?

I’ll wrap this up with some photos of the cemetery in the middle, sort of, of Oxford; creepy cool.

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Of Long Days and Moist Kiddos

(I think I might be setting the bar a wee bit high on the titles.) As the title begs explanation, here it is: I learned yesterday that one of the students on the trip doesn’t like to be called kiddo, so of course I call them that as often as possible. At one point I asked, “What about moist?”

“Oh, I hate that word too!”

<Brief pause>

“Well, then moist kiddos must be the worst!” I said with a huge smile on my face. I’ll let the reader take that wherever they want.

(Story note: it’s really been several days since I started this post, so I’ll try and summarize those days to catch up.)

Day 2

Visit to Harrod’s to grab some breakfast and be amazed at the amount of awesome stuff neatly presented, then headed off to see the changing of the guard, which was a lot like one would expect; a huge crowd of people, police keeping them wrangled (incidentally, British police are very polite), and lots of eating for a few moments of cool.

From there we headed to Borough Market which was full of all manner of cool things to see and yummy stuff to eat.



After some grub and gawking it was over to the Tower of London, to learn of torture and moats; so I of course took a picture of some chicken wire baboons.


Oops, forgot, on the way to the Tower of London we also visited the Tower Bridge.

From the Tower, we mosied over to Oxford Square for a little shopping and dinner. 

Day 3 we headed to Oxford to visit the town and schools which was quite nice save the bus rides to and from which took longer than the bus company said they would, and caused us to miss riding the London Eye at night.


There was a sweet cemetery too, but those pics are on my camera which has a dead battery; so you’ll have to wait for t

Day 4 & 5 (they blurred together for me) caught the London Eye prior to the gauntlet at became our journey to Hungary. Though our travel to Hungary was harrowing and delayed my arrival at the hotel made up for it when I turned down the hall toward my room and there was a tall attractive blonde in the hallway; in her underwear. Unfortunately I discovered the next morning that said siren was part of an Italian high school team, #awkward.

Soooo, Hungary, loving it!


Nearly forgot, London Eye!


Day 6 Hungary tour. We began at the Buda Castle, had a casual kebab lunch in the city center and finished up “swimming” in the pool fed by hot springs. I really didn’t know what to expect, but it was a giant public pool with all manner of people enjoying the water and watching soccer on a giant screen.



Then a nice dinner and an early return to the hotel where I am now enjoying a beer and the Germany/Ukraine game.

Tomorrow, we wrap up Budapest and head to Vienna!

Whoops! Forgot today’s Danube cruise.

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