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Advertisements for teaching abroad summer camps are a common sight on JCR pages in Hilary and Trinity, with China being one of the most common destinations. That’s how I ended up spending the summer vacation teaching English – I wanted to travel abroad to Asia and saw four weeks teaching in Guangzhou as a fair […]
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If I’d heard the word “Paris” before July this year, I’d have thought of the Eiffel Tower, croissants, nice coffee, cultured, attractive people, and enough cheese, bread and wine to make any Tesco aisle look poorly and scarcely stocked. Or maybe world-renowned art galleries with original masterpieces dating back centuries. Or King Louis XIV’s monumental […]
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Ahhh, the long vacation. At last, examinations and coursework assessments are behind us and we are finally permitted to relax. Well, with the slight aside of vacation reading that is. In order to fully escape from the clutches of such texts and memories of those ever more muggy libraries, many of us may be tempted […]
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In an attempt to create a new ongoing article template (rest in peace for now, pastappreciation), I’ve decided to recount the most amazing dish I’ve had the privilege to eat from all around the world. First stop, Japan! Here is the most incredible dish I had during my time in Echigo Yuzawa! Echigo Yuzawa is […]
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Picture the scene: it was a bleak day at the dying end of Hilary term. For at least six months, my friend and I had been battling through blustery British weather and a relentless onslaught of essays about medieval manuscript culture; our reward was a tutorial in which the tutor refused to refer to my […]
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Image Description: Mostar Bridge, Bosnia and Herzegovina Travel, without any doubt, is my greatest pleasure. I usually travel alone, and for the purpose of leaving my comfort zone. At the border crossing between Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro, I puff out my chest a little and sit up straight. I keep a stony face. The […]
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Above: Bridge St., Chester If rumour has it that the North is a no-go zone and rumour also has it that Chester is not in the ‘real’ North, then Chester is the destination. So Southerners (in particular), prepare to be pleasantly surprised by the contents of my must-have guide. Chester is a Roman city […]
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When I got off the plane at Marrakesh Menara Airport, it was a sensory overload. People yelling from all directions, every car communicating with honks of aggravation, and pops of bright colour around every corner. I got in the airport transfer feeling sceptical at best about spending the next week here. However, after a week […]
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The British railways have come to be one of the most blatantly obvious examples of where privatisation has failed. Commuters and tax payers are being ripped off by dividend collectors, while services deteriorate, prices climb much faster than wages, and incompetent Conservative ministers like Chris Grayling fumble around a problem they have no desire to […]
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This summer, me and 5 of my friends went on the most stereotypically coming-of-age holiday possible. Comprised of 3 film students, a ballet dancer and two Oxford biologists (yay!), we had the makings of a semi-functional group of 3 couples that could just about bear to live in each other’s pockets for two weeks straight. […]
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Image Credit: Lucie Blackman Trust When I became Features Editor at the beginning of December, my first thought was ‘Great! I can write a travel piece on New Zealand’. On the 2nd of December I set off from Newcastle for Auckland, a two day journey. When I left the UK, Grace had already been murdered; […]
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All images by Alex Homer. Description: a view of the Royal Albert Dock, Liverpool. Date of trip: Tuesday 14th and Wednesday 15th August 2018 Journey time: approx. 3h40–4h (usually two trains, with the interchange station depending on the time and day of travel) Fare: £49 (Off-Peak, with 16–25 Railcard) The distance is probably the main […]
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Image Credit: Alex Homer Date of trip: Monday 24th September 2018 Journey time: approx. 3h30 Fare: £68.70 (Off-Peak, with 16–25 Railcard. It’s almost certainly possible to get this cheaper by splitting your ticket—I think the cheapest way is to split at Leamington Spa, Derby and Sheffield, but I haven’t checked this. In fact, one of the […]
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Image credit: Evalena Labayen. From an avid hiking enthusiast, I want everyone to know that the Andes Mountains in Peru are no small feat to climb. In fact, they’re riddled with four-hour climbs up steep, shaky terrain at an altitude so high that I almost passed out climbing up to my bunk bed in the […]
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Image credit: Alex Homer. Description: Slough bus station. Ever since I read my favourite poet John Betjeman’s verse entitled “Slough”, I’ve wanted to visit the town to see if it was really as beautiful as he made it sound. After all, he clearly didn’t call it “the mess they call a town” for nothing. So […]
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My experience of seasonal work was a roller coaster. I spent four and a half months over the winter holidays, until May, working as a costumer for a holiday club, starting in Opio, in the south of France, for training, and quickly moving on to Val Thorens, in the Alps. Initially, I found it hard […]
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Oxford, and LMH in particular, host many interesting events but I must say that I’ve never attended an event in Oxford like this Anhui tourism event at LMH. Having cycled through countless roadsuntil I thought I must now be in Cambridge, I eventually arrived at LMH and followed signs to reach Talbot Hall. I suppose […]
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Image Credit: Alex Homer. Description: Coventry Cathedral. I like taking day trips to escape the massive, massive bubble that is Oxford. This doesn’t surprise people, but what does is when I told them I went – instead of to Bath, or London, or Worcester – to Coventry instead. But there’s no stopping me – and here’s […]
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Travel is a beautiful distorting mirror, one in which we can look back at ourselves and at different places, just like in books. Yet, this becomes even more spine-tingling when done through the lens of another age, through another’s eyes – this was my impression when I entered the world of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage by […]
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