Scenes from Oxford, UK

Sometimes photos get downloaded onto my computer and then just sit there, lying in wait as I forget about them and move on to the next memory card, and the next. And that's okay. Sometimes, it's nice to process memories long after they've been experienced. But then again, I've always enjoyed nostalgia-wallowing.

A little more than a year ago, I made one of my biennial trips to the UK, and Emma of Poires Au Chocolat (one of my favorite blogs!) invited me to visit for a few days in Oxford. Even through my bleary, jet-lagged eyes, Oxford was so incredibly beautiful, and Emma was such a wonderful host, making sure that I had the proper Oxford experience, complete with

campus tours, anthropological museums,
lawns that I had to keep reminding my crass Californian-self I couldn't walk on,
rowing races, swans interrupting rowing races,
Ben's Cookies,
tea in the oldest Oxford building, hot chocolate in a new hipstery bike shop,
bookstores for days, pubs with picturesque names,
homemade toad-in-the-hole, homemade scones (pronounced with a vowel that sounds like "aw" and not "oh") and marmalade, proper Devonshire cream, a beautiful garden to drink more tea in,
and all the wisteria and lilacs that I could sigh at to my heart's content.

You guys, I wish everything everywhere were covered with blooming wisteria forever and ever and ever.

I've never been to Cambridge before, but from what I've seen of Oxford, Cambridge has its work cut out for it in the rivalry.


(On the same trip, I went here.)
(and to Manchester. More on that soon.)