Page 44 - WINE DINE & TRAVEL MAGAZINE DISCOVERING ENGLAND

At the Oldest University in the English-Speaking World

THE OXFORD EXPERIENCE

By Nancy Carol Carter

t was a cold and uncommonly quiet directing a study-abroad program based in I had just that day learned about one of
night in Oxford as I hurried along Oxford. I spent the entire six weeks won- those quirky British traditions that be-
IHigh Street, looking for the landmark dering why I had not been visiting more muse most visitors, but entrance the true
Carfax Tower where I would turn left onto regularly. I enjoyed everything about Eng- Anglophile. In a practice dating to the
St. Aldates Street. My destination was Tom land: the historical sites, manicured gar- early history of Oxford, Great Tom, the
Tower and I had to be there before 9:05. dens, churches and green countryside. The bell hanging in the entrance tower of
BBC was my local radio station and Oxford Christ Church college, tolls 101 times
This was back in the summer of 2000. I was a cultural cafeteria. But now I was down to each night at five minutes after nine
in England for the first time in many years, my last hours in town and on a mission. o’clock. Once a signal of curfew, the

44 Wine Dine & Travel Winter 2014