Woke up quite early, but just lay in bed and read internets and drank water until it was time to get cleaned up. Went to breakfast, decided to try the bacon butty. Again, the meat ratio too heavy, removed the meat halfway through.

Very easy to get to Paddington for the train. However, it turned out that the train was insanely crowded and also that this train had reserved and unreserved seats. I hadn’t thought about that when I picked my seat, and by the time I realized it, the train was overful, people in the seats. I was like “how can you tell whether a seat is reserved?”, and then noticed the little lights above the windows that indicate just that. It looked like my seat was reserved, but luckily no one actually asked me to move. Nowhere to go! But Oxford is only two stops away and less than an hour and it actually turned out that once we were off the train, it was far less busy and crowded in town than for Cambridge.

I found the tour start point a little early and went down the street to sit in a shaded bench until about 10 minutes before. I’d been worried that my tour booking actually hadn’t gone through, because I’d gotten no email confirmation (maybe I mistyped the email address? totally possible) But ‘he’d got me on the list’, so that was fine. His name was Steve. He was a little skeevy, but very nice. Unfortunately, every time I asked a specific question, he pretended like he was answering it and then went off at a different direction and never answered the question. For instance, there is that cross in the middle of Broad Street that is the memorial or the location where they found remains, or so he claimed, of the three people who were burned for being Protestants, and then there’s a real memorial for them a block or so away. He had told us when they found the remains, and it sounded like it was within the last hundred years, but I couldn’t find anything like that online and he didn’t answer me later.

The tour was largely poking our heads in colleges, but not going in because we would’ve had to pay. Every college has pretty much the same set up: it’s a quadrangle surrounded by buildings, one of which is Dorms, one is the library, one is the dining hall and so on. I never really did find out how Oxford works, but he did say that it was not so much about taking classes but being handed a stack of books saying read these and come back and will discuss them. (It has turned out that a lot of my Savoynet colleagues went there.)

We saw the covered market,, we saw a building that was an active commercial building, but so old that it was all slopey, like a child drew it. The thousand year old tower. We also saw the sculpture of the man on top of the building. It was a good tour. I think I’m the only one who tipped him afterward, shame on the others.

I went back to the covered market, but it was very bright and sunny and even in the covered market, it was warm and humid, and I decided to go to this Italian restaurant next door because they actually had Caesar salad, which was pretty good. And I had the relaxing indoor sit down I really needed.

Walked down High Street away from the train station, then worked my way back on some streets I hadn’t seen yet. I really wasn’t in the mood to go shopping and it was very bright and sunny, so just worked my way back to the train and managed to get on a train that was right there. Although I was 90% certain I was on the right train, for some reason that car had no audio announcements and I wasn’t sure until the conductor actually came round that I was on the right train.

Once back, I got a iced coffee and some more water and went up to the room for a bit. Need to figure out what to do next – I was sweaty in my clothes, but didn’t want to change yet. So I decided to walk down to Kensington Gardens, and Hyde Park and then while I was there, I decided to just walk to the bear pub. (a substantial walk even though it was only two tube stops away from Paddington) And I did do that and saw a Rolls-Royce and it was just nice to see more city.

Went to the bar, had one cider that went in about ten minutes because I was so thirsty, then another one more leisurely. There was a bear at the next table who clearly would’ve liked to talk if I had been interested, but I was not. I was trying to match the space to what I remembered 16 years ago, went upstairs to look at that, but I think the last time the tables by the wall weren’t there.

Still feeling sweaty and yucky, decided to just go back to the apartment, not change, but pick up my Kindle and then go get some Italian food. I went a place right by the tube stop that advertised “homemade pasta”, but it turned out. It was very much a “will feed you, but it’s going to be as impersonal as possible”. For instance, singles like me at a long bench or a long table, not at a little table. And you had to scan the code in order online and there was like as little human interaction as possible.

I decided to get a pizza instead of wine. The pizza was actually pretty good. Back to the room, ripped off my clothes and then spent the rest of the evening watching Olympics and reading.

Oxford “Bridge of Sighs”, London Rolls Royce.