Oxford and the Cotswolds

This weekend, Meredith and I took a trip to the English countryside to take a break from the city. Our first stop - the university town of Oxford to visit Katherine, my friend from Kenyon. She showed us around the city and got us into her college for free. Apparently at Oxford you have to pay to enter any of the college campuses unless you're a student. Since we're cheap, we didn't go into any of the other ones...

Katherine only has "class" once a week where she meets one-on-one for an hour with her professor. Crazy!

I loved being in Oxford because it reminded me of my two homes away from home - Kenyon (for the architecture) and Salamanca (for the university atmosphere).

Then we went to Stow-on-the-Wold, an adorable little village in the Cotswolds.

The town center had some medieval stocks - photo op!

We went for a long walk through the fields to a nearby village. We got directions at the tourist information booth since they said there was a "footpath" between the villages, but apparently footpath doesn't mean an actual path... The directions were like a treasure hunt - "walk through the woods until you reach a mill, then cross the bridge and several fields until you see the cricket field..." There were little markers on the fences that separated the fields to point us in the right direction. 

And, to fully appreciate the conditions we faced, here's a photo of the mud covered in ice - so cold and so messy!

We finally arrived in a village called Upper Slaughter, which is much more charming than the name would suggest.

We also went to Bourton-on-the-Water, which calls itself "The Venice of the Cotswolds."