My master’s thesis seeks to understand the relief efforts of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Uganda between 1979 and 2008. Before heading to Uganda, I planned a trip to Oxford, UK to study some of the archives at the Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House at the University of Oxford in England. And while I was out here, my friend and I decided to have a mini-trip throughout Europe stopping in Amsterdam, Munich, Prague, and Vienna. And of course, I had to throw in a week to see my family in Russia.
I arrived at Heathrow Airport in London and made it to the Central Bus Station by 12:13pm local time on July 29. I finally made it to my destination city, Oxford. My flight was a direct flight (10 ½ hours) from LAX to London via Air New Zealand. Air New Zealand has pretty modern planes and the in-flight entertainment was phenomenal. They had a wide range of movies, and some were available in different languages. They were also extremely accommodating of my dietary needs. The flight attendant even suggested making me a salad from their personal food cart.
One major set-back with Air New Zealand is the fact that they have a weight limit for your carry-on bags: 7kg (about 15 lbs.). I had one traveler’s backpack and my tote bag with me, so I had to take a few things out of the backpack to place into my tote. Then I was told not to put those items back in the backpack because they were going to weigh my bag again before boarding the plane. Well, that never happened. One big lesson that I learned, however, is to always check each individual airline’s limits on baggage.
Waiting for my bus in the lounge area gave me some time to orient myself and take a look around. There were pigeons flying in and out of the lounge, which I found interesting. I haven’t seen that since my last trip to Russia, six years ago. The people around were also very interesting. There was so much happening, yet not much at the same time. People were speaking a number of different languages. Some were in a hurry, others were not. It was a very interesting atmosphere, or maybe it was due to my jet-lag.
It took me two days to fully adjust to the time difference. I was able to do a little bit of work on Wednesday. I had to get a library card done and order some archives because they can take a while to bring up. I spent two days buried in the Bodleian library, looking through the archives. At the end of the day yesterday, I realized that I don’t fully have all the information that I need, so I will be making a detour in Geneva in December, on my way back from Uganda, to go to the World Health Organization archive.
Today is the first opportunity that I have to actually play and walk around Oxford, but of course today is the day that it rains tremendously. I started walking around the town but was quickly brought to a stop at my favorite coffee place, Java and Co., writing a blog post. Yesterday, however, I did discover a delicious vegetarian/vegan restaurant, the Gardener’s Arms. It was a quick 15 minute walk from the hostel. So far that has been one of the most exciting parts of the trip because I’ve been engrossed with research. But so far it's been a decent trip.
Until next time friends.
-Leissan R. Sadykova
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