My Travel Adventures

School terms at Oxford are nasty, brutish, and short. In contrast to Yale’s twelve weeks of instruction (with two weeks of break somewhere in between and one week of exams towards the end), they last a mere eight. Logically speaking, this equates to around 24 weeks of instruction per year in both cases, but these feel very different. During my last two years at Yale, I wrote the bulk of my papers during the holidays and had time during the semester to eat long meals with friends and participate in extracurriculars. At Oxford, this buffer is gone. Every week is a mad dash towards the sweet release of the upcoming holiday season, and there is barely enough time to do any one thing well.   

It is difficult, only a week after my departure from the Czech Republic, to try to recollect the events of that day – so much has happened since then! However, one thing does stand out in my memory in a way that only unpleasant experiences do: having forgotten to fill in a passenger locator form at home, I had to make a frantic dash through the multiple pages of the form on my phone before I was allowed to check in.

The pictures below are from a trip I made to the city hall in my hometown Beroun. At the time, I was making my first attempt to get a voting pass so I could vote in the upcoming parliamentary elections from the Czech Embassy in London. To my surprise and consternation, I found out I was still registered to vote in New York, which necessitated me to formally request my removal from their list. Luckily, the workers of the Consulate in New York were very responsive, and I was able to pick up my voting pass in Beroun only several days later. Note for the future: unless planning to settle somewhere long-term, get a voting pass!

My last trip before departing for Oxford took me to the north of Central Bohemia again. Our first destination was the mountain Říp, though our first stop was the side of a road about ten kilometres away from it. The dog, who had apparently not been walked very thoroughly in the morning, began to prepare for a bowel movement inside the car, which necessitated an immediate emergency stop.

This weekend was presumably the year’s last warm and sunny weekend. Our family used the occasion to pay a visit to a relation near the northern city Liberec, where we gathered blueberries and mushrooms and made merry. The hills in the borderlands are very peaceful, and much of our visits consist of sitting on a terrace talking about how quiet it is.

On my last day in Texas, my dad drove me to the town of Palestine for my friends’ (note the location of the apostrophe) wedding. The ceremony was beautiful, though I am admittedly a poor judge, as this was the first time I stayed for the entire event. Continuing a decades-long tradition, members and alumni of the Yale Russian Chorus sang the medieval Georgian hymn Shen Khar Venakhi as the bride and groom were taking communion. I was told we sounded good, though I am not sure whether that was merely said out of politeness.  

We spent our second day in Texas immersing ourselves in a tourist-friendly version of its culture. After eating breakfast in Fort Worth, we toured the historic centre of the city, which is quite walkable and has some interesting art deco buildings. We also drove down to the Water Gardens.