Stratford-Upon-Avon & Oxford

(I know this isn't on time, but better to document the rest of the trip late rather than never) Stratford-Upon-Avon & Oxford at night! Regis and I drove there after he came home from work and thanks to TomTom, arrived in no time. The drive was beautiful, even at night - we strayed from the freeway and drove the scenic route through the English countryside and tiny towns along the way. Stratford is known for being Shakespeare's birthplace and so there are many statues of characters from his plays and the town is just darling. It was decked out for Christmas, with a Christmas market in the center of town. I ended up buying two pairs of Baltic amber earrings, because as much amber as was in Lithuania, the selection of green amber was limited. We then wandered around taking photos and looking for a restaurant that wasn't going to cost us such a pretty penny. We settled on Usha, an Indian restaurant that was reasonably priced and yet fancy looking. It was delicious! I was boring and ordered chicken tikka masala and Regis was adventurous and got something he'd never had before - chicken pathia - both dishes were wonderful and we then treated ourselves to a coconut ice cream sundae for dessert. More walking around, then headed back to the car to give TomTom a new destination for the evening - Oxford.

Arrived at Oxford and had a quick coffee in an Irish pub and then proceeded to walk around and explore one of the hearts of England's academic world. We saw Oxford castle and walked for some time while Regis tried to remember where one of the university's main buildings was. The streets were full of loud teenagers, most sounding drunk and we walked by a 'let's take this outside' fight between two groups of young men. Heart of England's academic world indeed...but the trip was fun, we ended up finding an ancient library and set of university buildings and then wandered back to the car and headed home. It was late and my knack for falling asleep in the car was not helpful for Regis, who was also tired and so I tried telling stories to keep us both awake, but that proved easily ignorable and so I resorted to a random question game. "Would you rather eat a snake or an eel?" etc...