So you’ve squandered (or should that be “invested”?) half your student loan in the college bar, spent roughly 72 hours without sleep getting your first essay done, and had everyone from back home on the end of the phone non-stop “making sure you are okay”, and its not even the end of Freshers week yet. You emerge from the lodge, bleary eyed at that old friend daylight. Where do I go? What do I do?

Why not take a left, where you’ll pass the end of St Michaels street housing the Oxford Union, not so ironically positioned across the road from a centre for the homeless. Get to the corner, you have the Odeon on your left (more expensive and less exciting than the Phoenix found in Jericho, and the Ultimate Picture House a bit further afield in Cowley) and are facing Kebab Kid, a nocturnal Peters institution.

Hang a right and you’ve made it to La Croissanterie, the day time equivalent of the KK. (Incidentally, and rather surprisingly, there are a plethora of sandwich shops in Oxford, and you’ll undoubtedly find your favourite by the end of Michaelmas, only to switch allegiance over the break: try Little Clarendon Street in Jericho for a pick of the butty bars.) Plenty of watering holes line George St until you make it the junction with St Giles, where you’ll find a handily placed book shop (Tip no.1: Don’t buy a billion books in your first week; you have a card for the best library in the world. Do, however, shop around when buying – Blackwells further up Broad Street and the Oxfam bookshop north up St. Giles are just two more of the vast array of 1st and 2nd hand establishments.)

Cornmarket will provide the essentials, if the essentials are CDs, Coffee chains, Mobile Phones and Clothes shops, with the Clarendon centre offering more of the same. If you have to go shopping there are two central Sainsburys, and a Tesco up the Cowley road. Different essentials are provided by the variety of places of worship in Oxford, with chapels located in many of the colleges, as well as a synagogue and three mosques.

Pubs are firmly part of the establishment at Oxford (sitting here typing this in Trinity term, I’ve just discovered my new favourite one, Bookbinders, tucked away in Jericho) and don’t limit yourself to the well worn paths-the best are found tucked down side streets more often than not. You want food? As well as Jericho, it's criminal not to get down Cowley Road, where you’ll find roughly 200,000 food establishments, from chains (Nandos) to take aways, fancy restaurants (Loch Fyne on St Clements) and even a Polish eatery. Also note Park End street.

The trick is, have a wander (preferably not late at night, unless you enjoy being an extra in a Resident Evil style zombie-fest), explore the other colleges if you have mates there (and if not, make friends in lectures, if only to hang around in that one where they filmed Harry Potter, or the one with its own deer park) and if its a bit much at first, you have (at least) three years to find all the places you’ll like.

Oh yeah. The Headington Shark. A Must-See.

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