oxford at 4 am

so somehow i came up with the idea that we should go up to oxford, where oxford university is at. not a bad idea, except that stephen was supposed to take a flight to ireland in the middle of the following day, so in order to go we would have to get up super early or leave...immediately. it was 12 pm and we were at some bar with tristan's friends, and we made the unanimous decision to head to oxford after we were done at the bar. no place to sleep, no one to know :) awesome. it probably wouldn't have happened if tristan didn't finally agree to it, which i completely attribute to the wine and beer he couldn't stop drinking. so at around 2 am we left his friends and were planning to grab a coach bus from downtown london out to oxford, which takes about an hour and half. got a little shawarma wrap along the way, went back to tristans to grab stephens bag for ireland (because he would go straight to the airport when we returned the next day) and head out for the bus stop.

we took a cab over to the bus stop, which i somehow paid 20 pounds for (30 dollars...insane). get out of the cab. and what happens? tristan barfs all over the street. yessssssssssss. now let's ride on the bus for an hour and a half! haha. we get on the bus and lie down in the back. tristan hasn't spoken yet since his recent barf. stephen and i laugh for a bit about it, then go to sleep. tristan is already sleeping.

wake up in oxford to tristan dry-heaving in his seat in front of me. such a great alarm! we are in oxford. its 6 am. its cold. we know nothing about oxford. the bus driver says nothing is open except mcdonalds, so we head there to rendezvous. we had planned to maybe find a dormitory or something to crash in, but that was not possible since all the colleges are apparently heavily guarded like its WWII again. soooo.....mcdonalds was the place. had some breakfast...laid my head down on the table, and tried to sleep for a bit. tristan was PISSED. everyone knows that feeling of not sleeping at all and having to much to drink. PISSED is the word. again, stephen and i laughed for a while, took some pictures, and then tried to sleep some more. HOWEVER, sleeping is impossible when the mcdonalds employees enjoy blasting american pop music over the speakers on the ceiling, one of which happened to lurk directly overhead our table. uggghhh.

decided to start walking. tristan isnt speaking. walked some more. looked for a map. found a map. found a coffee shop with big leather chairs. CLOSED. walked some more. shivered a little. found some cool buildings. CLOSED TILL 9 AM. damn. finally found a coffee shop that opened at 8 am. waited until 8:15 am since apparently they don't open on time. bought coffee but didnt drink it. went upstairs in the corner, took up three couches, and passed out.......for like 5 minutes. because....once again, employees like to blast music in the mornings. this time it was like jazz...but with the loudest trumpet ive ever heard. it was like a marching band was practicing in the coffee shop.

finally at 9 we convinced tristan that it was time to go and explore the city. and the city was awesome, for stephen and I. 1000 year old buildings! amazing. there was like a graduation going on or something, because every college was walking around dressed up. cool day to be there. each college has its own building that is completely badass. they are all like castles. its definitely like another world. after exploring, with tristan staggering behind us, we found a really old pub where CS LEWIS and JRR TOLKEN used to kick it and talk about books or something. decided to have lunch in the very room where they used to hang out. stephen and i had a traditional english breakfast, which means you have eggs, bacon, sausage, and for some reason, beans. tristan ordered an egg and bacon sandwich, took one bite, and decided he was still not hungry. so i ate that sandwich....i took one for the team! and after that, we were pretty much done. tristan couldn't wait to leave, and i dont blame him. grabbed a train back to london around 12:30 pm...which took about an hour, and then sent stephen on his way to stanstead airport.

as for tristan and I, it was naptime. boom. slept the rest of the day. woke up and kicked it with tristan, just talking about random things and spending some good old fashioned time together (including ordering greasy chinese food for dinner because tristan was finally hungry), and then crashed again. i proposed going to a pub one more time for a beer, and tristan almost threw up in his mouth. so we watched soccer instead and went to bed.

thats my story and im sticking to it.