Since coming to the UK I’ve been able to check off many-a-thing from my to-do list. However, my favorite by far has been driving. That’s right. I drove. On the right side of the car. On the left side of the road. Impressed? You should be.
My friend Carmen knew that I desperately wanted to drive while I was here so she concocted this fabulous birthday plan to make my wish happen. All I was told was that I would need to devote the entire day to the surprise, I would need my passport, and we had to take a train to the airport but would not be flying. This confused me greatly. I actually thought that we were going to take the Chunnel to Paris for the day. I was very wrong.
When we got to the airport I was led to a shuttle bus where I was instructed to close my eyes and put on my heads phones. Once the bus stopped and I was told I could open my eyes I found that we were outside a Sheridan hotel. It was at this point that I got very confused. I followed my friends into the lobby and was told to wait while Carmen went around the corner. After a few minutes she came back and told me to follow her. As I walked around the corner I saw a desk that had a sign that said Thrifty. Carmen yelled surprise. I still had no idea what was going on. It wasn’t until she told me they rented me a car and that we were driving to Oxford that I finally felt like I’d stepped back from total confusion. I was so shocked and happy that I had to let it process. Because I didn’t actually have a reaction poor Carmen thought I didn’t like it. I set her straight pretty quickly.
A few days before, Carmen had struck up a conversation about driving stick shift. Little did I know, she was trying to feel out home comfortable I was with it. I told her how I hadn’t driven stick since I was 17 and that I would be really nervous if I ever got to drive here. She did the wise thing and changed the car to a manual. After driving around the parking lot for about ten minutes and parking a few times for practice we pulled out onto the open road. Okay actually we pulled across the open road into a McDonald’s parking lot but it was still on the left side.
After our very English lunch at the ‘MACdonald’s, we hit the road. (For real this time). The drive out to Oxford was AMAZING! All the leaves were changing colors and the trees and hills were so beautiful. I was a little nervous at first with being in the driver’s seat but I caught on pretty quickly and did a decent job if I do say so myself.
Once we got to Oxford we parked and began walking around. We found this really cool book store that sold history and religion books. It was tucked away down and stone ally and had shelves of books just stacked up on each other. It smelled wonderfully like old books. After that we went to the store where they sell Alice in Wonderland memorabilia. Apparently, the story was inspired by a stain glass window somewhere in Oxford. After that we went to Christchurch which is one of the colleges of Oxford. It’s also where they filmed a lot of the Harry Potter Great Hall scenes. Unfortunately, we missed the last tour by FIVE minutes. (Don’t be too sad though because we’re going back) After that we just walked around the grounds of Oxford and then went to a bunch of little shops and walked the streets. One of my favorite things was finding a little liquor store and getting to buy local microbrews.
Overall Oxford was beautiful and amazing and makes me wish more than ever that I might still get my Hogwarts letter so I can have dinner just once in the Great Hall.
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