This place has been a college since before Columbus sailed over on his boat! The buildings are made out of sand stone which gives it a unique depth in color. Oxford is easily accessible from London. How easily? You can hop on a 10 pound (16 dollar) bus at the drop of a hat that will take you the 1.5 hours to the center of Oxford. No reservations required; this makes inter city travel not only possible, but preferred by bus. Imagine being able to go from Orange County to San Diego without having to have a car. Imagine if a plush, Internet loaded bus left every 10 minutes. And where ever it dropped you off, there was another bus waiting to take you to pretty much everywhere else in town. Wait, that probably exists in the US, but what about the lack of crazy people talking to themselves? Yep, in England, normal people ride the bus.

I came to Oxford to meet up with some of my friends that I had met along the way in my travels. This would be the first time I would do this on my trip. I met this particular bunch in Australia during a 3 day Frazier Island trip. Though not all of them could come out, 5 of them made the journey to meet up. Rich and Tom live in Oxford where as Zoe and Laura had to drive an hour from Brighton and Sarah came a whole 3 hours form Leeds.

Before the rest of the troops arrived, I was able to have a nice one on one with Rich.  This was my first peek into how I might feel when I come back from this world trip.  I asked him how life back home is and he told me how hard it was to cope.  “I hate it back here.  Things are so boring, nothing changes.  I’m just saving up for the next time.  Once you go out like that, you just can’t ever be the same.  It changes you.”- Were not his exact words, but the concepts that he was getting across.  I asked him “do you constantly keep referencing your trip?  Do you ever feel like a jerk or a know it all? “  He said “Of course, I bring it up all the time and no I don’t give a shit if people get sick of hearing about it.  It was amazing you know?”

Rich is 26 years old and just got back a few months ago from a 9 month trip starting in India and ending in LA (Before Home).  He is actively jealous that his trip is over and that I have a good 8 months left.  I fear this withdrawal when I return, but I hope to have an even keel by then about the balance required in life.  I hope I don’t turn into someone who is abroad for 10 years at a time, for I think that those people might be too far over to one side of the spectrum.

Rich took us out for a great night on the town in Oxford and his friends from home instantly took us in under their wings and treated us like brothers and sisters.  It was a true testament to his character (who he surrounds himself with).  Two of the girls from the group are still unemployed after returning from their travels (2 months and counting) due to the economic downturn.  Two of the people are back to work as normal.  Rich still has his old job of coordinating events and seminars too.

It is true that once you travel this way, you never look at life the same.  But not all of me wants to be a Gypsy though

Plans have changed a little due to airline pricing.  Today I am heading to Scotland instead of Ireland for the next week and then I am going over to Turkey to start my Eastern European Journey !

London is a town that shows signs of wisdom. As it used to be the centre of the imperial movement, it is now a city that shows great multicultural celebration.  In addition, their local newspapers employ citizens to hand out FREE newspapers TWICE a day.  This leaves an interesting scene of everyone staring at the newspaper in the tube (the subway).  No wonder this town is so damned informed about world events.  I am proud of the business model that encourages a large reader base, but I can’t help to cringe at the environmental effect that this might have.  I also think of how easily the public could be swayed if the power of the paper went into the wrong hands.

Onto the three attractions.  First I went on the Eye of London which is the worlds largest Ferris wheel that moves slowly and takes 35 minutes to complete one revolution.  Though the views are great, it’s monochromatic theme gets old in 5 minutes when you are trapped in a capsule that is as hot as the tube and costs 17 pounds (about 28 bucks). This was my least favourite of the attractions and it happened to be the most expensive.

Next was Westminster Abbey, the resting place of England’s royalty.  This 15 pound monument is worth every penny.  It comes with a splendid audio unit guide.  It’s iconic value completes the story of how dominant a nation England used to be.  This place has so much rich history that it practically has stacked priceless sculptures and tombs on top of each other.  I spent 3 hours here and thought every moment was worth it.  The architecture here has to be seen in person.  Casually hidden behind half inch glass among other artefacts was a ceptor which held a 530 carrot diamond the size of an apricot.  Eat shit crown jewels!

Finally I went to the Imperial War Museum which was the best sight I went to the whole day.  It also happened to be free.  It covered every war and war machine for the better part of 200 years.  Each of the exhibits were perfect in terms of breadth and depth.  Many school children of various ages ran and played through the exhibits, missing the gravity of their offering.  I remember back to high school and how interested I as well as my entire class were about both of the world wars and the auxiliary conflicts.  When approaching the world war one and two exhibits, there are dozens of pictures and timeless quotes ranging from Plato to Churchill.  The overwhelming theme was that war is largely a mistake.  And in this wisdom was shown by quotes from over 4 thousand years.  At the end of the exhibits I was left with question “where is the current exhibit?”  Where is the Iraq war exhibit?  Or did we not learn our lesson from the quotes, from the thousands of years of war?  More importantly, where is the action against this war.  Where is the initiative in their wisdom?

Tired and emotionally fatugued I made my way to the top floor that housed the Concentration camp art exibit.  I didn’t break stride for the 3 minutes that I spent in the empty halls.  Passing into each semi corridor, my feet triggered a creak in the floor that reminded me that I was not dreaming.