way to london

Oxford, three weeks later

Oxford

I arrived in Oxford from Wales, after a couple of days of cycling, and I almost sleep in the street, it was very cold. There are two backpackers and hundreds of visitors that arrive daily but at the end I was lucky because I could lodge there.

The University of Oxford was founded in 1167, for expelled English students from Paris. Today the University is conformed by 36 schools. Many of them were founded among the XIII and XVI centuries.

I visited the school Christ Church, the biggest school which dates 1525 and the one that has given to Great Britain 16 First Minister in the last 200 years.

Comedor de la Universidad

But I was impacted by the dining room, there were three longs wooden tables, aligned and delicately served. And the order and the tediousness were such that more than a dining room it assimilated to a chapel.

When I left the Christ Church School, an older and black man came to me. He was the security guy and he threatened me with a stick. He ordered me to take my bike and leave immediately the place. I never understood what happened, but I believe that he was angry because I left the place 10 minutes later. I wanted to face up with him, he was a bad-mannered but I preferred to count up to 10.

London – Km 37,096

I arrived to London, after a cycle day because between Oxford and the capital city only 100 km exist. Reaching to London, I had the sensation of being at the same time in several places, because per kilometres only I saw Turks, Pakistani, Hindu and Africans people. It seemed that I wasn’t in Europe; in the outskirts of London I hardly saw white people.

Mi amigo venezolano

Once in Ealing my biggest happiness was to meet Daniel, the Venezuelan guy who received me in Nairobi in 2003. Today he lives in London. He is one of the friends that the trip left me.

For this reason my days in London were very pleasant, after a long time I felt like in my own house, with my own room, with a good bathroom and with all the facilities to buy what I wanted, and of course; to cook as I like. For some days I felt like a bourgeois.

London is the biggest city in Europe, with 7 million inhabitants. It was founded by the Romans in the century I A.C. like administrative centre and commercial port. It possesses a great wealth of historical buildings, besides numerous museums and galleries. I visited the British Museum which is the oldest public museum in the world, been founded in 1753 to harbour the doctor’s collections and naturalistic Hans Sloane. But to the pieces of him have been added donations and acquisitions from all over the world. Today the museum has countless objects that date from the prehistory until the present time.

Big Ben

The days that I remained in England were good to know the English people a little. Not very appreciated by the Irish people neither by Scottish, I had some moments that I felt myself very nervous. Like that day, when I lost the way to the centre I asked to an about 25 year-old guy, the entrance to a park three times. He was walking and I cycled very slowly back him. I thought that he was deaf, but I felt that he didn’t like of tourist. So, surprised by his discourtesy I came closer him, I took his arm and I said to him: “I am calling you man! Can you inform me the entrance to the park? . And with a hate look he indicated it to me and he left.

I also remembered two different days when some adolescent boys and girls wanted to take off some of the flags of my bike. Every time that I began to cycle they ran back me and they tried to take them. They amused with me during more than 10 minutes. And I couldn’t do anything. Then I met a Spanish guy who lived there during several years and he told me that sometimes the most of the adolescents in England are malicious and very bad-mannered.

But I surprised myself when I read in a newspaper that through analysis had been detected in the drinking water high quantity of Prozac. It is a drug for depression. The note said that the scientists called to an urgent investigation.

I left London by this way, surprised.

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