Oxford & Bath | Travel

Hello!

Heya! As a holiday getaway my family decided to spend a couple of days in the UK, as we had already been there but only to London and Cambridge. That first trip of ours was quite a few years ago so I had only a few memories left (old ladies giving us snarky comments for speaking loudly and someone asking us to leave the University Campus because my 3 year old brother at the time had slipped and fallen and started crying), and few preconceived notions (terrible food). Now, let me just get the bad stuff out of the way first. I know I may sound too negative but I'm just being really brutally honest, and I tend to sound a bit too negative even though I enjoyed the holiday!

I'll be the first one to say that England... just isn't for me. As someone from a southern european/angolan background, I just can't click with a place where both the weather and the people are so cold. Our first complete day, spent in Oxford, was just beautiful, the sun shone making every monument seem even prettier and made walking around so much easier! In that day I thought "wow, maybe life here isn't that bad after all, I could get used to this". I suddenly had this image of me strolling around the city towards my college, and what a wonderful image that was. And I tried to hold on to that, this year I have to apply for universities and applying to a big, foreign uni would make my parents terribly happy, but... that's really unlikely to happen. 

The people we interacted with were either just polite (you know, smiling but it not feeling genuine, just out of politeness), snobs, or really amazing (the latter were mostly immigrants so...). Like I said, I just don't click with english people, how much we try, northern and southern europeans just have different ways of being. We ate amazingly well though!... on foreign cuisines, mainly asian (as soon as we found a real mediterranean restaurant we hoped on immediately.) And you may be thinking "Damn Inês, for someone criticizing snobbish behaviours you're starting to sound like a snob!", it's just true okay? I enjoy my meals seasoned, and for a country that colonized half of the world for spices, english cuisine is bland and flavorless as hell! I even made the mistake of one time ordering a lasagna in a really famous pub in Oxford and gosh. Never again. 

What's also ridiculous is how much they charge for museum entrances. In Italy, you can freely visit a whole damn palace even the freaking inside of the toilets for the price that in England you pay for one lousy room, with a guided tour that lasts 10 minutes. *cough cough* Blenheim Palace *cough cough*. I would've appreciated the Bodleian Library much more had it not lasted 15 minutes for such a ridiculous fee. Maybe british people can afford that, but paying 40£ for the bus, plus 40£ for the entrance plus our meals plus souvenirs if you wish, every day, gets really freaking expensive, and we don't make as much money as they do. They are incredibly beautiful, I'll give them that, fascinating and beautiful.

The University Museum of Natural History, now that was breathtaking. Besides the beautiful architecture of the whole building, the exhibition was fascinating and encapsuled almost all that exists and what we know in a single room (huge, albeit). From the dinosaurs to fossils, to space rocks, to nasty bugs, you had everything. There was also a room that made me a bit uncomfortable, which had lots of artifacts like clothes, masks from special rituals, various instruments, from different parts of the globe like Asia, Africa and North America. And you'd look around and gasp like "wow this is fascinating" and then think how all of that was stolen and people died and were enslaved for that, and it turns a little bittersweet. I mean these valuable artifacts are intact and preserved at least, but at what cost? And so many of these areas are in poverty specifically because of colonization and slavery and the country who did that is still making money out of it? I shut down those thoughts and enjoyed the day but that stuck at the back of my mind until leaving the museum.

After Oxford, we left for Bath where we visited the Roman Baths (duh, thus the name of it) and admired the all around lovely city, which was not as cute as Oxford in regards to the typical houses and such, but whose monuments blew me away! I'm such a sucker for architecture, don't mind me. From Bath we went to Salisbury so we could see the oh so famous (and rightfully so) Stonehenge. Despite the terrible wind and cold, we enjoyed it a lot a lot a lot. It was absolutely terrific, the aura of that place is so mysterious and intriguing and as an history lover of course that had to be one of my favourite stops. We also got to try fudge which was sickeningly delicious, and got to see the Magna Carta! 

On the days left we shopped (yay for shops that we don't have in Portugal!), tried to eat on a couple of other typical fish and chips restaurants and see the views and just breathe in the cold, english history that was all over the town. 

So, even though I might've sounded negative, trust me when I say that these cities were lovely to explore dispite those factors I pointed out, and I'd definitely return, especially to Oxford which I loved a lot! All in all I'm just grateful that I got this opportunity since I love to travel.

● Inês ●