Jailbreak:  That time of the year where your friends get to have all the fun hitchhiking across the world all in the name of raising £18 for charity.

There have been some pretty amazing tales form this year’s attempts, though.  A team of 3 from New College made it to Tokyo, whilst The Tab’s newsfeed is full of pictures from service stations across Europe.

Jealous?  Thought so.  That’s why we chose to follow two Jailbreakers who don’t get out of bed before Midday, let alone Oxford.  All in the name of a good cause!

Purple Turtle

When Cornmarket is rammed with onlyjust-pubescent kids on a Saturday afternoon escaping it can seem as difficult as hitching a lift to Thailand. But with 3 days at your disposal, it would be criminal not to make it down to Hythe Street.  At least go to Debenhams.  Our team spent the first night of Jailbreak in here, presumably stuck to the floor, drunk and excitable, they marched North at 4am and made it to…

Is this fun?

Port Meadow

“Fuck, Flavio*, the plains of the Mongolian savannah are  stunning!”  They weren’t.  Johannus* was drunk.  It was Port Meadow, Day 1.  Our pair’s leader Flavio took the lead at this point, realising they were in trouble:  “We hadn’t made it very far in the 24 hours and frankly we were out of ideas.  We decided we need to ask for advice, so we headed back down the Banbury Rd., to the…”

Flavio on Port Meadow

Rad Cam Lower Level

Even if you live in St. Hugh’s, getting to the Rad Cam doesn’t count for shit.  But if you’ve spent the night in PT and the Morning on Port Meadow, Flavio reminds us, then getting there does sort of feel like an “A grade-A achievement.”  They needed to get out of Oxford, though – Johannus only signed up for Jailbreak so he could miss his tutorial on Monday and frankly being at the RadCam didn’t make this very likely.  They decided to hitchhike.

Don’t go here

Milton Keynes

Finally, and without asking any questions, they nicked a lift off this sweet bloke Steve.  Johannus told The Tab, “we’d been waiting for 20 minutes when this guy finally stopped.  He said he was a policeman and we shouldn’t be standing in the road, but we didn’t believe him.  For starters, he wasn’t driving a police car, or wearing his uniform.  Anyway, he offered to take us to Milton Keynes.”

From what we can gather, Flavio and Johannus agreed that Milton Keynes was somewhere just North of Lille.  But what’s that, another roundabout?  Or?  The same one?  Steve?  STEVE?  They were stuck in Milton Keynes. Only one thing for it, get walking to…

Steve?

Purple Turtle Camden

Yeah!  This exists!  Roundabout after roundabout led them here.  Luckily they got quickly thrown out for shouting too loudly about doing jailbreak to uncaring patrons, but their night wasn’t spent comfortably in Hyde Park, it was spent in…

More fun because you’re in Camden

HMP Wandsworth

Jailbreak! Haha!  Ironic now that Flavio and Johannus are eating gruel.  Stealing cars isn’t alright because you raised enough to get RAG into Cellar twice on a Wednesday.  Luckily for these two, Steve from Milton Keynes had fallen for Flavio’s Spanish accent and rushed to their aid.  He put them in touch with his mate, ‘Pascale,’ who he promised would ‘traffic you straight to Europe.’  Flavio hoped this wouldn’t slow them down and wondered if Pascale had any snacks.

Wandsworth Prison College Oxford

Sangaat

Seriously, Jailbreak is dangeorus.  Pascale may have promised the boot of his Nissan Cedric was secure, but Pascale also gets hand-jobs off the French border police.  He handed them over.  DetentionCentreBreak isn’t so fun.  10 Hours in though and our pair remembered that all they really needed to do was produce their passports.  So they did.

Pascale’s Nissan Cedric

Brussels

Sure, they escaped the long arm of the law, but this European city of law had them apparently pleading to return to cell 467.  You thought Oxford was boring on weekends, try Brussels.  No, they don’t have a Bullingdon Arms.  “They did have a club called Delirium, though,” Flavio assures us.  After a brief scuffle about whether it is okay for them to buy First-Class train tickets to Berlin, they decide it is, because they’ve always wanted to go there and Jailbreak was almost over.  They gorge on croissants and bratwurst, before the train draws slowly into…

Delirium in Brussels does actually look quite sweet

Berlin

Great.  Johannus spent your final charity donation of £4.50 on a single cigarette outside Berghaim and still they didn’t get in.  When we last spoke to them they sounded pretty unhappy.  Flavio was shitting gruel and Johannus was going to be back in time for his tute.  We thought we overheard someone say, “I wanna go back to Sangaat,” but can’t confirm this.

Good to be home, man

*Names have been changed