Sorry this is so very late. I started it weeks ago, but never got it finished. Here at last is my account of my last week in Oxford and my journey home.
And so my first year at Oxford has drawn to a close, and I'm back in Durban for the Summer...I mean Winter...holiday.
As I imagined, the packing wasn't fun. But somehow, I managed to get it all done. The college doesn't provide storage space, so it had been something of a challenge to get everything worked out, but thanks to friends and people from church it all came together. I was kindly given boxes by a girl from church who works at a chemistry lab and another lady from church offered to help with transport. Originally a guy from church had offered me space in his loft to store my boxes, but he lives in Didccot, which is something of a drive from Oxford. So instead I asked Heather and Tam if I could store my boxes at their house in Oxford. (Tam's doing Linguistics with me and Heather is his girlfriend, who counts as an honorary member of the "LingPals"; especially after organising our Linguists' Christmas dinner last year and an end-of-year barbecue - which was unfortunately rained out and turned into a pub lunch). I owe all these people a great thanks for their generosity in helping me out.
The lady helping transport was free on the Thursday before I left (28 June), which meant taking my boxes to be stored a few days early. This was challenging as I still needed things to eat out of and with, as well as bedding, for three more days. I eventually bought some cheap things from Poundland (the shop where everything costs only one Pound) which I didn't mind leaving behind. My bedding (that which didn't belong to college) went into a backpack which I took to church on my last Sunday and left with one of the ladies there.
On my last Friday in Oxford (29 June), I had a pub lunch with the Ling-Pals (one of the final ones with most of us there together). Sadly we had to do it without Maryanna who was travelling with her parents, but thankfully I'd been out with her and her parents the the week before. Christelle didn't make it to the lunch either, but some of us saw her later and she's still with us next year. I had to say my last good bye to some of the one-year master's students (especially Xavier, Camille and Patrick - although none of them will be too far away for an occasional visit to Oxford next year).
The Sunday I was due to fly (1 July), I went to the "early" (9.45) church service at St Ebbe's. Unfortunately most of my friends are from the 7 pm service so I didn't see too many of them, but I did get a pleasant surprise anyway. There was a notice on the bulletin saying that there was to be a barbecue after the service for those who wanted to stay for lunch. With all my stuff packed, I didn't have much exciting planned for lunch so I thought I would stay. Then, during the announcements they told us that it actually wasn't a barbecue but a South African-style braai with real boerewors (South African spicy sausage) on the menu. There are a few South African families at the church who had arranged it. I was in hysterics that the day I was due to fly back to SA, I would be treated to a braai. In typical English style, it rained a little, but it was still very enjoyable.
After that I headed back to my house finalise my packing and get my bags ready. I was to take a special coach (bus) service that goes straight from Oxford to Heathrow. I planned to get to Heathrow in advance of three hours early - in case anything went wrong - so I caught the coach at around 3.00pm. The trip was pleasant but uneventful. I got to the airport really early, as expected. But that gave me time to find my terminal, and then go hunting for a lock for my bag (my original lock I came over with was a combination lock that's mechanism somehow failed and I had to have cut off when I arrived in Oxford). I had a spare lock, but forgot that my case has two zips which need locking. It turned out to be handy though because, in looking for a lock place, I also found the place that wraps your bag in plastic to it doesn't get torn while it's roughly handled by the luggage packers.
I was slightly worried when I was packing that my hand-luggage was overweight. While Emirates allows up to 30 kg of checked baggage allowance, we are not allowed more than 7 kgs of hand-luggage. I wanted to bring both my netbook and new laptop home and had to have those in hand-luggage so they didn't get damaged. Without a scale I had no idea what it all weighed. When I got to the check-in counter, they told me I was way over the limit, and asked me to repack some things into the main luggage. Unfortunately, I'd already had my big case plastic-wrapped. So the lady suggested that I repack what I really needed into my laptop bag and check in my wheelie hand-luggage case (my check in luggage was under the limit). This worked out fairly well in the end, although it meant I had to carry my laptop bag with laptop and netbook as well as other stuff in it around Dubai airport, instead of having the wheelie bag to drag around (the checked luggage goes straight through so you don't have to worry about those bags at the lay-over).
My first flight, on board one of the big multi-level Airbuses, left at about 8.30pm. We saw a bit of the start of the Euro Soccer final on the big screen in the waiting area. In between that, I had a lovely view of planes taking off into the lowering late summer sun, which was beautiful. The flights were okay. Unfortunately, I was again unable to sleep, which made the second flight in particular drawn-out. The air-conditioning makes my nose really dry which is also annoying. But the Emirates food and service is good. I managed to get a window seat on my first flight as I had a couple with seats booked on either side of me who asked to swap. That was fun as I got to watch the late sunset over Britain and Europe and the rising moon. I also got to see the early-morning sunrise over the Arabian gulf approaching Dubai.
It took a very long time for my baggage to arrive, but at last it did. Weary from about 34 hours without sleep, I made my way to the arrivals. Hilda-May was waiting for me, ready to run past the barrier to say hello. My parents were a little further behind. I was home.
It's been a really good year. A lot has happened, but I'm glad to be home for a spell. I'm really enjoying the Durban sunshine. Thanks again for everyone that has supported me and especially to the Lord for keeping me safe and helping me settle in well; for giving me great friends and for helping me deal with the various challenges I've faced, both big and small. I'm in awe of just how much I've been blessed in this past year and look forward to what the year ahead had to offer.
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