Peace in the Park – A Sabbath Spent in Oxford

(Featuring the moment I realized making friends was going to be harder than I thought.)

I went to Cambridge and thoroughly hated my time there. In summary, I learned that I don’t like staring at old buildings for hours (even if they’re really pretty) if it means that I cannot explore inside them. The social justice activist in me began to rise up, because I simply felt that the educational resources should be more accessible to the people of Cambridge, but that was not my battle to fight that particular day.

I went to Oxford with some colleagues I became friendly with in my first few weeks in London. We started to learn in Cambridge that we had different traveling styles, priorities, and interests, but we did not let it stop us…although I certainly left early. We arrived in Oxford on Saturday morning and dropped our luggage off at the hostel we had booked.

My colleagues went to a breakfast cafe, and I went to the beautiful parks with my pre-packed snacks in my bag. I spent about 4 hours celebrating the Sabbath outside at the park gazing at God’s beautiful handiwork on a gorgeous blue, clear sunny day. I admired the birds and the trees, the dogs being walked. The swans were certainly my favorite to see running through the pond. Me, God, my Bible, and my walking shoes celebrated such a peaceful Sabbath.

When I returned to the hostel, the sun was nearly down and the people I traveled with informed me of the plans they made before the trip that they chose not to tell me about beforehand. I learned that I would be alone all night because they had plans for drinking games, meeting guys from Tinder, and going clubbing. 

Once the sun was down, I booked an accommodation at a wonderful hotel only a 10-minute walk away. I gathered my things and checked into the hotel. Then, I met them for dinner, and returned to my hotel afterward, where I relaxed watching the rest of Shmigadoon season 1 whilst snacking on the wonderful complimentary biscuits. The following day, we reunited to go home where I shared my complimentary water bottles because there was no way I was going to drink all of it, and we shared breakfast where I learned about their adventures and traveled back home.