For the last full day in the UK we caught the train into Oxford. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Perhaps I wasn’t ready to return to visit a university particularly one at the opposite end of the spectrum to my former place of employment. There were fresh faced students at every turn, bicycling around the streets, seemingly vlissfully unaware of their privileged position in the world of tertiary education. I found it all a bit depressing mostly. We did do a tour of the bodleian library which was excellent, highly informative and everything a historical tour should be. We saw the chained books that used to be the system to ensure noone actually took a book out of library. Then, at lunch, I found myself sitting next to two upper class accented dears who were maliciously gossiping about supervisors and postgrads and I realised that all universities are the same no matter where they are or how much money they might have. And then I wanted to leave.
We did go into the Ashmolean museum but we were running short of time and spent most of our time in the Egyptology section and then the gift shop.
And then we raced for the train, missed it by 1 minute and now we’re drinking buckets of tea and waiting for the next one which doesn’t arrive for an hour.
Tomorrow….Singapore.