Three stop bus tour reveals a different side of England

Organizing their own trips can show students a part of the global experience they would have never seen

                                        Jason Loeffler
                                           For The Mirror

            A semester in England would not be complete without a few trips outside the main hub of London. Regents College does a great job of setting up excursions to places like Canterbury and Stonehenge, but it is almost more fun to plan a trip for yourself and a few friends. That’s what I decided, anyway, when a friend and I booked a bus trip to Oxford, Stratford-upon-Avon, and Warwick Castle.
            A bus picked us up at a hotel not far from the campus pretty early in the morning, and, after transferring to another bus at the main depot, we were off on our adventure. The tour guide was a true maestro who, without doubt, knew everything there was to know about Britain: for example, after converting liters to gallons, the price of gas in England works out to about eight dollars a gallon. And I thought we had it bad. Also, tuition at Oxford, our first stop, is $9,000 a year for Britons and nearly three times that for international students.
            Both Oxford University and the city of Oxford itself turned out to be quite beautiful. The “city of lofty spires” was actually the inspiration for the Hogwarts Castle seen in the Harry Potter movies. The Great Dining Hall was quite similar to the ones I had seen in the films, but the grand staircase and front courtyard looked exactly like the ones on screen.
            Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace and home of Shakespeare, was the second stop on our trip, right in the middle of the Costwalds area, where small, sleepy cottages with thatched roofs lay dormant. We toured the Bard’s birthplace and walked among the streets for a bit and all the little shops turned out to have names associated with his writings. “The Food of Love” restaurant, “Iago’s Jewelers,” and the “As You Like It

Jason Loeffler and his friend have some fun at Warwick Castle just outside of Stratford-upon-Avon, taking pictures in the stocks. Trips away from the campus can often times be the most rewarding part of the study abroad experience.

Sandwich Bar” were among them. Street performers spouting lines of verse and dressed in period costumes were everywhere, evidence as to why Stratford is England’s number one tourist attraction outside of London.
Our last stop was Warwick Castle, just a few miles from Stratford. The castle was bought several years ago from the Duke of Warwick by the Madame Toussaud’s group, so wax figurines were everywhere. A true palace of excess, all of the rooms were furnished in the most lavish style possible, and some of the displays turned out to be, truly, quite grand: I tried to count the number of swords showcased in the Great Hall, but lost count around 130. Before we left, I managed to get my picture taken with my friend, Danielle, in the stocks – our heads and hands latched between wooden planks.
On the way back to Regents, we calculated how much it would have cost us to gain admission and get to all these places on our own, and, from that perspective, the trip was worth the 60 pounds (120 dollars) we paid. Unfortunately, our little day trip only whetted my appetite, and I cannot wait to start doing some traveling to other countries.

NOTE: The above selection is an original work by the author, Jason Loeffler; he retains all rights to its content.