In all the hustle and bustle of continual excursions and weekend trips, it was easy to forget how magical it was just to explore Oxford. Some of my most pleasant memories of the program are not from Stonehenge or studio tours but from local excursions and just walking around town. When the weather is nice (which isn’t always), Oxford has a safe, dreamy quality, making it more like a rural English town and less like the bustling tourist destination it usually is.
First visit to the Black Pine.
Our first taste of this came in an event mentioned earlier, when we walked through the Botanic Gardens on Alice’s Day in the first week of class. While the gardens were peaceful, this was not the full Oxford experience; dreary skies and crowds from the holiday celebrations dampened the pastoral charm of the gardens. However, the greenery was infectuously cheerful and helped brighten spirits even in the rain.
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