Oxford Experience

July 23 - 28, 2000

 Our Travel Experience

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Our Travel Experience

We read about taking summer classes at Oxford University in an Arthur Frommer's Budget Magazine more than one year before we signed up for this course. It was always something we thought we could do on our year off & we're very glad that we did fit it into our schedule. The worst thing about the whole week was that there was a dress code for dinner.

The best thing about the week were the people we met and the overall atmosphere of Christchurch College. All students ate their meals together in a magnificent dining hall, so we had a chance to talk to many of the other students. There were two programs running at Christchurch the week we attended: The Oxford Experience and Florida State Summer School. Since everyone ate together, we met students from both programs.
 
Seth studied the Architecture of English Cathedrals and Tara studied the History of Oxford. We both enjoyed our classes. From the moment we walked onto the Christchurch grounds to check-in, we felt that we were special since we were allowed access to non-tourist areas of the college. It was really nice to be able to walk past all the "do not enter" signs. 

So, to the tourists this hall below was a tourist attraction, to us it was our cafeteria. Kool!

 
 
We also throughouly enjoyed our accomodation. We were in a student's room in Christchurch college that even had its own bathroom. Even better than the bathroom though, was the age of the building. It was very, very historic feeling and again, we were on the inside. Tara enjoyed sitting on the balcony reading or writing postcards watching the Japanese tour groups approach the building. 

We also both liked our teachers. Seth especially thought his teacher was very knowledgeable on her subject matter:

Tara's teacher:

The food, though served in a stunning setting, did get old after a while, so we enjoyed a local Indian restaurant and a very small mobile truck serving kebabs that parks right across the road from Christchurch's entrance.

We met Chris and his wife Mary Francis here in Oxford. A few month's later, his article on the Oxford experience appeared in the L.A. Times.

Category Rating Comments
Overall Experience 8  
Ease of Journey 7
Accommodation 7
Activities 7
Coolness 9
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Oxford University's Oxford Experience