Visiting Oxford, England/ Carlos Pueblo
One day
morning, William Su and I took a bus of National Express at
Victoria
Station to Oxford, England, north of London, to visit Oxford
University,
an old and famous college of the world. We can see the
beautiful
English field on the way. Yellow Rapeseed flowers look like
our Texas
mustard green and are all over. Farmers gather the seed
product for
oil for food, canola, and some commercial use like biodiesel.
It takes two
hours bus ride to reach Oxford.
Visiting
Oxford is identical to visit Harvard, both are famous for their
schools and
both are college towns, both are rich in religious atmosphere,
especially
Oxford. Right off the bus stop, there is a small town square with
several food
stand restaurants some with seats on the square. I chose the
first one
for Falahal, a middle east vegetable soft taco with various chopped
vegetable
and cheese. I see falahal in Houston and yet do not know what
that means.
It’s a roll of salad green. William tells me that it is very popular
in Europe
due to many Turkish immigrants. This stand owner was from
Beirut, Lebanon,
and he kept on asking me if the falahal he made was good.
Co-instantly,
there were a small group of Turkish students around. They were
students from Istanbul, Turkey.
William has
an i-phone; therefore, I just followed him around. Oxford downtown
is not big
at all yet very clean and streets are organized.
There are many churches
and colleges.
Walking among them, we stopped in front of a clock tower waiting
for the
clock to strike, then we entered the campus. On an edge of a soccer field,
I found an
Akebono flowering cherry at its blooming. It’s almost two weeks later
than the
same Akebono at Tidal Basin, Washington, D.C. It is a late blossom in
D.C. this
year and also late in London, Oxford, and Cambridge. Akebono is a
derivative of
famous Tokyo Yoshino Cherry. Passing through St. Mary and the library,
we ran into
a couple from Dallas, Texas. We had had a good chat for the trip. They
were just
off the Cruise at South Hampton and hired a car to travel England. I
admire his
courage to drive on the right side of the vehicle and left side on the street.
She says
that she would help him all the time. We turned around at a museum with
certain number
of heads on a wall, the kings head, toward the bus stop to end this
visit.
My
impression of Oxford is a rich city and the University is a noble academy with
no
doubt at all.
Students with special temperament by walking down the street, I can
see the
difference from current day college students. Oxford is famous for arts,
literature
, philosophy
and law, yet you can feel the unique character of the campus. I am very
Impressed.
On the way back to London, I saw one large area of new beautiful modern
architectures
very different from the classical of
Westminster and very beautiful. I
am anxious
to know where and the name of that area. I should come back for a
third visit
of London.
