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Swansea, United Kingdom
51° 38' N 3° 58' W
Dec 02, 2008 16:02
Distance 5740km

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Other entries in Swansea

Back Where I Like to Be and Go

Wales (and Oxford). December 2nd to December 13th, 2008.

HCT had an extended holiday from December 2nd to December 13th.  This break was the fortunate combining of the UAE National Day celebrations and the second Eid.   Note, next year this combining of the two events will not happen, as the Islamic calendar is 11 days shorter every year (the year is only 354 days long), so the Eid will be in late November.  I and many of my colleagues were keen to travel or get out of town, so I went straight from campus to the Dubai airport. Got there very early, as the flight was not until midnight, but just the idea of getting out of town was a reward in itself.  Curiously, the flight meant I had to do a lay-over in Bahrain, my least favourite city, but it was progress.

Flew thru the night, and arrived in Heathrow and took the familiar tube/subway to Paddington Station and the train to Swansea.  Got in around 2 PM and immediately went to bed, as I had not rested well on the flight.  Stayed at my lovely friend Lady Jane’s place.  It was a real shock to my system to be in a cold and damp environment, as I had not worn a jacket since I do not know when, but certainly not for the past five months.  The weather in Wales was similar to the climate in Vancouver in December; cold, damp, short days/long nights and overcast.

As Jane was teaching during the day, I keep myself amused by doing gardening and riding a bicycle into the city several times.  I was not aware until I started to rest  just how busy and stressful the teaching at HCT is.  I HAVE NEVER WORKED SO HARD IN MY LIFE, which is likely a measure of just how blessed I was all those years at UBC.

On our only full weekend, we went to Oxford, as in the universities.  The weather was cold, but the sky was clear and inviting.  What a lovely town, and this is a town, Oxford is.  The unique college system they have there is so different from what UBC is like.  The students do not go to formal classes; rather they go to their tutor (professor) and have one-on-one discussions and instruction.   The tutor than tells them what to do next and away the student goes.  Also, all the students are lodged in these special dormitories and eat dinner in special dining halls (like the one from Harry Potter, in Trinity College, where the dining hall part of the movie was filmed). There are 15 or 16 colleges in Oxford, and the students go to one of them, but may takes courses from other colleges in the city.  In total there are about 15,000 students in the Oxford college system.  Jane went to such a college, for besides Oxford and Cambridge there is also Durham, where she studied, which follows a similar collegiate system.  Most uni's (as they call universities here) are like UBC, that is the 'sage on the stage' format, which certainly suited me at UBC, as I rather liked being the sage.

Besides colleges, there are some wonderful older churches/cathedrals and castles.  Climbed up to the top of one of the churches (Saint Mary the Virgin) and got a wonderful view of the surrounding area.  Went into Oxford castle, which dates back to medieval times.  It was in a good space, as the photos attest.  Going to Oxford was the highlight of this trip in more ways than one (as the next entry suggests).

The best way to summarize the visit is to look at the attached photos. Enjoy