Posts tagged Oxford University
Four Day-Trips from Oxford, England (Winchester, Stonehenge, Blenheim Palace, & Portsmouth)
Four Day-Trips from Oxford, England (Winchester, Stonehenge, Blenheim Palace, & Portsmouth)

It’s at about this time every year that I get horribly nostalgic. Facebook and Instagram are flooded with those “remember what you were doing X years ago” posts—all photos from my time studying abroad in Oxford, England, three years ago. It’s not so much wanderlust that compels me to be mopey and stare at my Oxford photos for an hour at this time of the year; it’s missing the quotidien of living in another place, the same melancholy I get thinking about Kentucky now that I’m in Minnesota. It’s missing eating Nando’s at least once a week, going to lectures in beautifully old stone buildings crawling with ivy, hot chocolate and millionaire’s shortbread from Caffé Nero, the Marston footpath being flooded from the relentless rain, and waiting for my creative writing tutorial on a bench beside the river.

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TravelHannah SchultzOxford University, oxford, england, day trip, tour, europe, winchester, cathedral, stonehenge, jane austen, john keats, st. cross hospital, old sarum, uffington white horse, blenheim palace, woodstock, winston churchill, portsmouth, royal navy, hms victoryComment
Travel with Me: A day in Oxford, England
Travel with Me: A day in Oxford, England

This was our last day of the first "leg" of our trip, when we would finally have a chance to have a proper look around our base city. Despite having lived in Oxford for four months last spring, I'm sad to say that I spent more time studying than being a tourist. But this did mean that there were so many choices for things to do! I decided to mix nostalgia and adventure by revisiting some favorite sites from my time there and seeing some new ones as well.

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TravelHannah Schultzoxford, Oxford University, radcliffe camera, bodleian, new college, harry potter, botanic garden, pret a manger, ben's cookies, magdalen college, addison's walk, marston footpath, the vines, museum of natural history, eagle and child, cs lewis, jrr tolkien, canalComment
My happy place: University of Oxford Botanic Garden (ft. baby succulents)
My happy place: University of Oxford Botanic Garden (ft. baby succulents)

The glasshouses were my favorite spot in the entire city. There were palm trees and coconuts, pitcher plants and lilies, lemon and orange trees. It was life, and life abundant. I could (and, in fact, did) spend countless minutes crouching and staring at the pond in the Lily House or trying to find every yellow plant to match my rain jacket. One glasshouse even included the corpse flower, which is a giant flowering plant that smells like rotting meat to attract flies for pollination. It is native to the rainforests of Sumatra, and this was the first time I'd ever seen one in person. 

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Nature, TravelHannah SchultzOxford University, Botanical Garden, Succulents, Venus flytrap, cactus, cacti, Lowe's, botanic gardenComment
Young people can have opinions too: Thoughts on [the Oxford tutorial system]
Young people can have opinions too: Thoughts on [the Oxford tutorial system]

We need to remove the prejudice against young people being world-shapers. Lafayette was a teenager—yes, a teenager—when he joined the American Revolution and was made a major-general. We often think of teenagers as intellectually blocked beings being puppeteered by hormones and video games. What kind of contributionsdo you think we are missing—to government, to science, to literature, to art, to society as a whole—because we've told a generation of young people that their thoughts and opinions have no merit, that they'll think differently, correctly, when they're older?

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EducationHannah SchultzOxford University, Best Semester, Study abroad, Asbury University, TutorialsComment
The Life of a Short-Term American Expatriate
The Life of a Short-Term American Expatriate

I've dreamed about studying abroad ever since I can remember. When my brother and I played house as little kids, I was always a missionary in China or a college student in Germany. Then, in high school, I became enraptured with British television (Doctor Who, Merlin, Sherlock—the works), and I set my sights on England, hoping to one day spend a glorious semester across the pond and become a bona fide anglophile. 

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TravelHannah SchultzStudy abroad, england, Oxford University, Lexington, Asbury University Comment