Traveling to Oxford - Our Final Destination

  Oxford, England, United Kingdom
Friday, August 8, 2008

The Market

      We woke up in the morning at 6am wide awake. Our internal clocks are very confused having lost 7 hours so we are having some bad times adjusting. We laid in bed for a while but were soon up and moving and on with our day. The bed and breakfast we stayed in was very run down and defiantly not the best in the world so we decided to skip the breakfast as the man who checked us in came to the door with no shirt on and was pretty dirty looking so we weren't too trusting on him cooking for us. Instead we checked out and headed down the street to a small local breakfast place. We learned that baked beans are apparently a breakfast item here which we never would have guessed. We ordered our meals and were served a huge breakfast that was amazingly good. There bacon is also more like back bacon and think strips of it, but it really really good. We ordered coffee as well but didn't get your normal black coffee instead we got some crazy espresso type drink. Apparently if we wanted black coffee we had to order an Americano. So from that point on we made sure to specify when ordering coffee that we wanted normal black coffee. They also make all their coffee here instant and not perked which is taking some getting used to and will defiantly end once we have a place and can perk our own coffee.
 
     After breakfast we headed down to the same strip mall as yesterday to get our cell phone unlocked. Apparently selling the service of unlocking phones is legal here and there are shops all over that will unlock your phone for a fee so that you can use it with any service provider. So we got ours unlocked then charged up our Virgin Mobile card so we could use our phone as a pay as you go.
 

Paddington Station Crowd

     Finally having a phone we headed down to the train station and having no idea how to get to Oxford went to the info booth and got instructions and tickets. It was going to be a long journey through London's underground to get there having to switch trains 4 times. So we started our journey and every train we got on got nicer and nicer as we got closer to the center of London. We eventually ended up at Paddington Station which is the biggest train station in London I'm told. We didn't even realize we were there when we got off the train because we were below it. We got off the train and headed up some stairs to find ourselves standing in the middle of a massive crowd of people. There were trains and people as far as the eyes could see. The station was massive and there were screens everywhere saying which platforms to head to for what trains.

Paddington Station

     We eventually located Oxford on the boards and had 5 minutes till the "arrival" time so we went to get some drinks and then headed to the platform. The train had just left and we were confused as hell. We talked to a worker on the platform and the times posted on the board were for departure times not arrival. So we had to wait 30 minutes for the next train so Scott had to go to the bathroom and we went looking. We found the restrooms and Scott went in and then promptly returned asking for 30 pence. His request was meet with both Aimee and I staring back at him like he was crazy. He then explained to us that you have to pay 30 pence just to get into the bathroom. So if you have to go don't wait till the train stations. We got on our train which was very luxurious and had tables and even plug-ins with big huge comfy seats.   It also turned out to be a direct train where the one we missed had about 15 stops so it actually worked out for the better and probably quicker.
 

The Train to Oxford

     While riding on the train we were constantly having heart attacks as the trains headed in the other direction would come flying past on the tracks right beside you and scare the crap out of you every single time. We have ridden the trains for a while now and we still can't get used to them flying past. We had a pretty nice view of London but most of the tracks were lined with tree's so you couldn't always see that much.   When we got off the train in Oxford and walked into the stupid ticket things for the third time we were finally shown how to use them properly. They have gates that you must put your ticket into to get threw but we could never figure out how and we stood out so bad the security guards standing there would just shove a key in and pop it for us. We were always trying to put the tickets in the top but you have to put them in the side and then they shoot out the top. So we finally stopped looking like idiots and walking into gates all the time and carried on our way.
 

Streets Of Oxford Castle

     Our first stop and mission was to start looking for a place so we headed to a leasing agency that was near the train station. This was where we discovered our first unplanned roadblock. We were told that they wouldn't even talk to us unless we all had jobs. We were fairly angry with them as we wanted a place to live before we got jobs. We immediately started to freak out and went to try and find a place for the night. We planned to stay in hostiles but found out very quickly that they weren't nearly as cheap as we thought. It was also Friday which meant the weekend was coming and most were booked solid. We had a list of places but were quickly moving through the list with no luck. Starting to stress out we decided our best bet was to go find an internet cafe and get online and start looking for other options and to continue calling places.
 

Open Roof Double Decker!

     We spent two hours in the shop and started hitting every letting (leasing) site we could find. We probably sent out around 100 emails in the two hours to every ad we could find letting out places. We stumbled onto a site that was for letting rooms for short term and decided this was our best plan of attack. The bed and breakfasts we had to stay in were running us 80 pounds a night, where the short term let agreements were 80 pounds for a week. We were going to chew threw a lot of money in a big hurry if we didn't find a long term or short term place fast as the bed and breakfasts were too expensive. During our mass emailing we started to get some calls coming back to us and lifted our spirits a bit as we went from having nothing to at least having some leads again. We began to schedule viewings for both short term and long term residents but had to schedule for Monday as it was late Friday. We scheduled 3 viewing for Monday (2 long term, and 1 short term) and one for Tuesday in Bicester as we were reaching for anything we could get. Then we finally had a hit that was to view a place today, however it was to view in one hour and we had to get half way across the city. We knew we couldn't make it by foot so we packed up our gear and headed down to the information office to find and get maps of the bus routes.
 

That's A Lot Of Bikes

     The information center was false advertising in my opinion as they had no information at all but merely trying to sell you tickets to tours and other crap about the city. It was also very busy as we were quickly realizing Oxford is a very touristy location. Aimee and I had looked online for which bus to catch while we were in the cafe but the tourist place told us to take a different bus than the one we picked. One would tend to trust the information center so we decided to take the bus they said. After getting on the bus we were able to grab a map of the bus routes and numbers and after looking at it closer we realized that while this bus was taking us in the right direction it would carry on straight east away from where we needed to be. So we hit the button and got off the bus at the next stop realizing that this was not the bus we wanted at all. It got us out of city center and into Headington (suburb of Oxford) but was going to carry on straight threw and into another suburb.

Main Entry For Oxford Castle

     We needed to be in Headington but now we had jumped off the bus and because we were too stupid to have previously bought a map we were now standing on the side of the street with no idea where we were or what direction we had to go. We asked a local who gave us directions and we started walking backwards the same way the bus had come from. We saw a gas station and went in to pick up a map as we had no idea where we were. After looking at the map we realized the local had gave us terrible directions and while we were heading in the right direction if we had of kept following her directions we would have missed our turn. Two strikes for the locals as the tourist information and the local both gave us terrible directions. We made the pact that from now on to make our own directions and not listen to people anymore.
 

Castle Of Watford

     With map in hand we headed down to the house we were going to view. It turned out to be quite the jaunt but we had time to spare as we planned for walking time as we were still very new to the city. When we finally made it down to the house we had passed about 4-6 hospitals and were very confused as why they were like Mcdonalds here. Every 10 blocks there was a hospital no matter what direction you walked. And the ambulances were constantly flying around with lights and sirens blaring. We joked that there's a lot of heart attacks in the city but really have no idea why so many were ripping around constantly. At the house we looked across the street and there was a bus stop that low and behold was for the bus that Aimee and I had picked. If we had of just taken the one we planned on and not listened to the information people it would have dropped us right in front of the house. Instead we had to double back and walk about 30-40 blocks.

Oxford Castle From Inside

     We headed up to the house but had arrived before the let agent so we knocked anyway and a man answered the door. He said he was just living here for a week till a room and board opened up at the hospital down the street as he was working there. Apparently most of the doctors and staff working at the hospitals actually stay right on site in their own building. We took a look around the house and it was a dump. Everything was old, there was mold growing on the walls. The couches were in the kitchen and there was no dining room table. And every single room in the house had a bed in it. The first floor was just a kitchen and a "bedroom". Upstairs had 3 more "bedrooms" and a bathroom. After looking at the floor plan and layout we realized that here when they're letting out houses they just put a bed in every single room so they can try to get the most money out of it. The main floor "bedroom" would be your living room in a normal house with the couches and a TV. Where the couches were in the kitchen would be were a normal person would put a dining room table. The upstairs would be your two normal bedrooms but the one is way too small to be a bedroom. It would be more of a study room in the normal world. Our agent was also very poor and hardly sad anything aside from "here is the kitchen, this is a bedroom..." He was missing quite a few teeth and just looked scruffy and dirty as hell. So we scratched this place off our list and headed back to the street. We were desperate but not that desperate.
 

Some Building

     At this point we were starving and also didn't have a place to stay yet. We made some more phone calls and got a bed and breakfast near where we were at the time and began another long jaunt to it. On the way we stopped at Subway to get some supper as there were a limited amount of food stops and most looked pretty bad. We also only took a chunk of cash with us and left the rest in Watford with our bags as we didn't want to carry around a huge amount on us. We planned to buy as much as we could on visa's but soon learned that in England they have credit cards that have a micro chip in them that you just stick in this reader. This reader does not double as a swipe so our credit cards were suddenly useless. Later on we did find that most places do have swipe backups but they are limited so we had to spend more cash than we originally planned. Another point of interest is that Subway has corn as a topping here. We can't figure out who would put corn on a sub but they also serve beans for breakfast, put coleslaw on potatoes and other weird things that leave us scratching our head. Trying out new things you never would have dreamed of is half the fun though so we were kind of enjoying seeing all the new eats that were about.
 

The Conifers Guest House 2

     We headed down to the bed and breakfast called "The Conifers" and passed another bunch of hospitals. Our curiosity was peaked and we realized that the reason there were so many hospitals was instead of having one huge one they simply broke every department in a hospital up into a bunch of small buildings and spread them out everywhere. There are no sky scrapers here as the tallest thing would be a church tower. Unlike back home where you have a 20 story hospital we think that you can't build high buildings here. Were guessing there are even regulations on how high you can build buildings; which would explain why they just spread them out everywhere.

Inside Our Room

     This bed and breakfast was a million times nicer than the one we stayed in last night. It had a double bed and single bed in the room with actually room to walk between them. We also had an in room shower and bathroom which was a lot more convenient than the shared one at the last place. We also had a flat screen TV mounted to the wall, free wifi, in room coffee, and a huge bay window. We were so excited to have a nice clean large place to spend the night and our own shower for the morning.

Inside Our Room 2

     I would recommend this bed and breakfast to anyone coming to Oxford. It is quite a distance from City center (hour walk, 5-10 min by bus) but we enjoyed it as up to this point all we had seen was commercial. By being out in the residential areas and being on foot we finally got our first view of the residential areas and how beautiful they are. We also realized that Oxford and probably all of England is a very park filled area. There were massive parks ranging in size from a football field to city sized parks scattered all over. It was so beautiful to be in an area that cares so much for the environment. The amount of parks and trees showed that they didn't care as much about filling every square inch of the city with houses like back home. They would rather spread wide and leave areas in there city for people to enjoy than create a massive concrete jungle. They also have recycle bins beside every single garbage can that we could find. Every house also has recycle bins beside their garbage dumps. The bus's run with no exhaust and you could defiantly see the care that is shared around the city for their land and the environment.
 

The Conifers Guest House

    We ended up crawling into bed at around 1am as we were wide awake for most of the night and couldn't sleep no matter how hard we tried. The 7 hour time change was screwing with our sleeping pattern more than we originally thought. We ended up being up at 7am the next morning but that will continue on in the next entry.