Being in Oxford during the vac can feel a little strange; what to do without all those essays, worksheets and lectures to fill your days? Well TOG student ambassador Abi, headed to London:
London Trip
Oxford is really close to London, and it's really easy to get to on the train or bus! My friends and I decided to go on a day trip to some museums in London, and so we got the Oxford Tube, which is a bus which goes to Victoria Coach Station from Oxford. A return ticket is £14, and the bus picks up from Queen Street, which is about a 3 minute walk from our college, Christ Church! The bus took about 2 hours, and, although this is silly, it was really nice to just be on a moving vehicle after months of walking everywhere in Oxford!
When we got to London, we walked through St James Park and saw a diplomat coming to visit the Queen, and then went on to the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery, where we saw some really cool paintings and photos, including Van Gogh's sunflowers and a photograph of Virginia Woolf!
After this we went for lunch in a really nice Mediterannean / Greek restaurant, and then went on to the British Museum, which I was very, very excited about, as a Classicist: we got to see loads and loads of vases (one of my favourite parts of the Classical world) and we saw some of the Parthenon sculptures as well, which I've wanted to see for absolutely ages!
After walking around the British Museum, we got the tube to the bus stop, and then began the journey back home. At Christ Church, hall was still open, and so we wanted to make it back in time for our later dinner sitting, Formal, at 7:20pm. The bus was scheduled to arrive back at 7pm, but it got later… and later… until finally the bus arrived at our stop at 7:19pm - luckily for us, it drops off right outside Tom Gate, our main gate (literally, right on the doorstep) and so we legged it to hall, and fortunately made it just before the gates closed!