University

For my first sojourn into out-of-London England, today I went on a day trip to Oxford: lovely medieval town, and home of the world's most famous and most prestigious university. I was fortunate enough to be guided around the uni (and the town — they're virtually one-and-the-same) by my mate Garth, who showed me several areas that are generally off-limits to the public, and that are well worth seeing if you have the opportunity.

We haven't seen much of him so far: so today, my dad and I went and met up with Paul; and he took us for lunch, and also treated us to his own special tour of Harvard. Since Paul is currently working at Harvard, as a professor, it was much more unique and memorable than the standard tour that we went on last week. Lunch was great, too.

One of Boston's most famous attractions (for tourists and academics alike) is Harvard University, one of the most famous, prestigious, and expensive universities in the world. Harvard is easily the top (as well as the oldest) university in the USA, and it's probably rivalled only by Oxford itself in terms of reputation. Harvard is also the second-richest non-profit, non-government institution in the world, surpassed only by the Roman Catholic Church. Today, my dad and I went on "the unofficial tour of Harvard", one of the guided tours that you can do of the university's main campus. And so, therefore, we can now say that we've been unofficially introduced to the place.