I went to Oxford to see James and Victoria, and celebrate with them for finishing their PhDs. They finished their oral examinations on the 20th (James) and the 21st (Vic). They were both done in just over 2 hours, which is apparently pretty fast, and only have to make some minor corrections.
Hooray for James and Victoria! James is already a medical doctor, so they are now know as Doctor doctor and doctor.
The first day I was there, James took me on a quick tour of the city, while Vic had her oral exam. We saw the Oxford bridge of sighs, the Radcliffe Camera (not a camera at all, but a boring old building), and some theatre called the Sheldonian, which had a bunch of busts out the front.
Oxford Bridge of Sighs
The Sheldonian
After Vic finished up we celebrated with a few bottles of sparkling wine (champaine that isn’t from Champaine, France) and then we went out to dinner with a large group of people from James and Vic’s research labs.
After that we went for a few ice cold tubes (of amber neck oil), at some of the local pubs, and even managed to wangle a lock in. A good time was had by all, and no one needed to throw their voice (technicolor yawn).
Oxford school chums
I had originally booked a return train tickets from London to Oxford and back again for the same day. They cost £8 in total, so I figured I might as well miss my return train and go home the next day. This meant I was able to go to the dinner and drinks. Imagine my surprise when a one way ticket from Oxford to London ended up costing me £20!
As an aside, On the trip over to Oxford I was looking out my window at a disgusting light industrial wasteland, and thinking how terrible it was. A few seconds later we passed the train station, and it was Slough, the town immortalized by The Office and the funny 1937 poem “Slough” by John Betjeman.