Out of London :)

Remember I’d told you about this Big Bus thingy? Well, they also provide out-of-London whole day trips… and we chose a combination of “Oxford- Stratford upon Avon- Warwick castle”.

Its clichéd by now, I know, but let me begin it with “it was a fantastic trip”! :) Venkat, my parents, kichu and I went. The bus was due at some 7.25 am and guess what time we boarded it? Nope! You guessed wrong! We were on the bus at 7.25 am! :) Remember, this is not India? :)

Well, it was amazing to see the other side of England… the smaller towns, huge farm lands, sheep and cow in herds, poultry, simple folks with vegetable baskets in hand in complete contrast to the concrete, straight roads, trendy, fast, expensive, brand conscious London city.

Our first stop was at Oxford university. Unlike what I had thought, Oxford is a series of some 24 colleges. I’d thought its just one institute. And we did visit the main university and saw the halls where the greats like Boyle, John Locke, Oscar Wilde etc were students of this prestigious college. We also saw the grand staircase and hall that in fact inspired Warner Brothers to make JKR's movies (J K Rowling, of Harry Potter fame, for those who don’t know :P)

We also were shown different departments of the college and to everybody’s surprise there was no department of Science! There were departments for grammar, for astronomy(which was not considered science), mathematics, geometry, philosophy, etc, but not science! The reason being: Till the 14^th century, science was not an established stream of study. It was kind of tolerated by some people, but never really encouraged! It was looked upon with scepticism and doubt. :) and this college was built in 12 century or so! Centuries before the American Continent was even discovered, England boasted of the finest university in the world! :)

So, well, after this, we went to have lunch… with the bus troop itself. We had hot delicious yummy pasta and bread with butter, a double scoop of ice cream and hot coffee is freezing cold. Oh, I forgot to mention… it was a few degrees colder up north than in London. :) We paid 10 Pounds per person… that’s close to 800 rupees… for one person for one day for one meal! So you can imagine why I haven’t shopped till now and why you aren’t getting anything from here! :P hehe

After a good lunch, we were taken to Stratford upon Avon, Shakespeare’s birth place. Rather, the birth home! It was a small little house compared to the mansions of London, but yet one of the bigger houses of that street.

During the travel, our guide in the bus recited, and I must say, quite wonderfully, a few Shakespearean sonnets and verses, that if we closed our eyes and listened to him, we felt as if we were actually watching a play! And trust me, we were amazed when we saw 4-5 performers in Shakespeare’s garden who offered a sonnet to kichu, who performed a part of some play for us…! :) They were dressed in some ancient Columbus kind of clothes with swords and hats and the old English accent…! It was brilliant! It’s the kind of thing that I love! :)

As a souvenir of the place, I picked up a little stone… from the ground! :) Because everything else was sold over a counter with a label of 7-10-20-50 Pounds… choose what you like! :P And I wasn’t going to spend any more money than I had to! :)

After this, we went to Warwick castle. There was some festivities going on and it resembled a fair hosted by some king :) lot of merry making and good food :) a river flowed by with a very majestic swan :) I took plenty of videos and photos of the swan :) Remembered ‘The Ugly Duckling’ :D By this time we were all a little visibly worn out and tired :)

The 5 of us at Warwick Castle... (Mom, kichu, dad, venkat and I)

We came back home around 9 after having had dinner at Mumtaz :) then narrated the day’s events to Harish :) played cards for a while, and finally hit the sack! :)

I’m not promising I will be writing much any time soon. I’m kinda hitting a writer’s block soon… I see it happening :) But thanks for reading till now and for all the encouragement.

Until next time, take good care, have fun and stay happy :) Cheers!