Oxford
It's weekend again, which means it's time for traveling and exploring new cities. After visiting York I was excited to see the city in which multiple scenes of the Harry Potter movies were filmed: Oxford. Both are lovely in their historical and friendly atmosphere. Certainly worth a second visit!
In York I visited a friend who's following the same program as I do (European master in food studies). The city of York has an incredible defense wall that is still (almost entirely) intact. When walking on the wall, you have a beautiful view over the city and the cathedral: the York Minster - which, I believe, is built on old Roman fundaments. The cathedral as it is now is built in the 13th-15th century and is one of the largest of its kind in Northern Europe. The gothic style of the building and the stained glass are magnificent. I was most impressed by the level of details in the stained glass, absolutely wonderful! And of course, also the squirrels were also present, as in almost every city in the UK. For me, seeing squirrels was always quite special as they are not present in large numbers in the Netherlands. So, you don't have to travel far to check out the wildlife!
Regarding Oxford, I was quite lucky to have a friend who actually studies there as he gave me an awesome tour around the city. I don't remember how many colleges we've visited - all were absolutely amazing to see. All colleges that I saw had their own mini-campus with an inside pitch, a church, dinner hall, library, and so on. Talking about libraries, the Radcliffe Camera, which is a part of the Bodleian Library, is a stunning building in neo-classical style that now is used as reading/studying location and is definitely worth a glance (only students can go in, unfortunately). In the end of May there will be the iconic Summer Eights rowing championship, a four-day regatta of bumps races which constitutes the University of Oxford's main intercollegiate rowing event of the year. I definitely want to see that!
Study-wise I'm still going strong: my long period of experiments have finished and I'm now in the phase of data analysis and report writing - quite a change from full days in the pilot plant and the lab to hours of number crunching and typing. With the deadline rapidly approaching, I need to combine the work with the 'UK-to-do-list', as there are still many cities to visit and activities to do... Challenge accepted!
Greetings from the UK!