My Travel Adventures

The short stretch of the Danube between Bratislava and Vienna is perhaps one of the most historically significant parts of Central Europe. Littered with Roman settlements, medieval castles, and baroque palaces, it attracts hordes of tourists every summer, a fact discernible by the sheer number of hotels in unremarkable towns.

Since I failed to enter the Blue Church on the previous day, I woke up at 6:00 the next morning to visit during the narrow slot when the church is open. From Monday to Saturday, its hours are 6:30-7:30 and 17:30-19:00, which leaves very little time for flexibility (or sleep). Skipping breakfast, I arrived at the church slowly after opening hours and took pictures as the congregation slowly trickled in.

As I wrote in my last post, I keep a mental list of places that I’ve never visited despite their proximity to Prague. Until the end of this year, this list somehow included Bratislava, the capital of our sister nation, the coronation city of Hungarian kings, and the first foreign destination of all Czech presidents.

I have a mental list of places which, despite and because of their proximity to Prague, I have never visited. Dresden was on the top of that list for a long time, as I had even spent an entire two months in Berlin without ever stopping by.

I returned to the Czech Republic on the 12 th of December, having just narrowly avoided the complete societal collapse that befell England this winter. Although both my train ride to the airport and flight home were delayed, real disaster only struck once I was safely at home, with heavy snowfall causing various modes of transportation to be cancelled and car crashes to litter English roads.

Among the many reasons it is good to have friends is they help you get out of your own head and push you to do new things when you get stuck in a rut. A few weeks back, my course mate Sophie suggested we visit London to see an opera, with Puccini’s Tosca falling on a particularly opportune day.

As the last week of school drew to a close, I let myself go. I had submitted my applications and finished my classes, so now was the time to have fun and catch up with friends. Not that I hadn’t seen them at all during term time, but certainly not as much as I would have liked to. On Friday, a few of us visited a Slovak restaurant in Cowley, and at a subsequent get-together at Saint Cross, I made plans with my friend Johnny to make a trip the following day. We departed for Gloucester on Saturday morning, changing trains at Didcot Parkway. Johnny’s foresight guaranteed us an exciting journey: we watched Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on his iPad, though I am not sure what was more action-packed – the film itself or my frantic scanning of the Chinese subtitles. At Didcot, we got so engrossed that we almost missed our connection. Gloucester’s major attraction is its cathedral, an establishment that dates to the seventh century but whose modern contours were definitively drawn in the f

Little photographic evidence exists of my second Michaelmas term at Oxford, for it was a dark time. Both my electives for the entire year took place this term, on top of which I had to complete my PhD applications. Autumn’s only saving grace was that, by a massive stroke of luck, one of my electives clashed with a course seminar that I consequently – and with sorrows overflowing – had to forego.