Oxford Revisited (aka fixed up version)

Hiya all,

I am fixing up this blog post, so that it is properly detailed and interesting! I just read Inbar's blogs and they made me feel bad about this one...so here we go!

One important fact about Oxford University is that it is a myth. Basically, no one who is studying at Oxford or involved with it in any way thinks about it as one big university. It is divided up into about 39 colleges, and each college commands a greater loyalty and attachment from its students than the university as a whole. We stayed at University College, which is the oldest college, founded in 1249, and therefore the best. End of discussion. If you ever go to Oxford and don't want to seem like a tourist, do not wear anything that says Oxford University on it. Myself, I am now the proud owner of a University College hoodie. It's pretty much the best.

We arrived on Saturday, and spent the majority of the day doing orientation things, so that was fairly unremarkable. My friends and I did make a visit to Shakespeare's Milkshakes, which is a thing that exists, and therefore we had to go there. I had a delicious Othello milkshake. (Titus Andronicus shake anyone? (pat yourself on the back if you got that joke)) My room at Univ (as we locals call it) was really nice, I had a bedroom and a little study. Also, every room was fitted with an electric kettle, tea cup, tea and coffee, milk and sugar.  Is that not the most British thing you have ever heard?

Punting, with Hannah looking appropriately Italian!

Sunday morning after breakfast, I went to the Queen Lane's Cafe, the oldest continually in use coffee shop in Europe, had a mug of tea the size of my head, and read Hound of the Baskervilles. Ladies and Gentlemen, my life. That afternoon, we went punting along the river (I'm not sure what river it is), which was really fun and a new experience for sure. It is sort of hard to explain, so I'll include a picture so you can get the idea. At one point, we passed a couple of swans. Now, swans, as everybody knows, are terrifying. They may look pretty, but go too close and these heartless creatures will break your arm without a second thought. So, we had a good laugh being terrified of the swans. Then they started to follow us. Seriously following us. Quickly, one of them passed us, so that we were boxed in. We got stuck against a wall, due to some turning issues that the driver was having, and as the swans slowly approached the boat, we were sure that this outing was to be our last. Luckily, we got back on the river just in time. The demons, both in front of us now, led us under a bridge, and as we were going through we realized that they were waiting for us on the other side. Thankfully just past the bridge was our destination, and we were able to escape the foul creatures.  That concludes my punting adventure.

You can tell by the look in his eyes

Monday I actually had to go to class. Imagine my disgust. After those, I went on a tour of Christchurch college, which boasts many famous landmarks, including the Hogwarts Great Hall. So yeah. I went to Hogwarts today. After Hogwarts, a few of us went to the Eagle & Child, which was C.S Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien's favorite pub. So yeah. I had a half pint of cider, and there was a sign on the wall with the "it comes in pints?!" quote from LOTR, which was fabulous. 

Tuesday, I didn't have any classes, so I planned for it to be a big tourist day.  I toured the Bodleian Library in the morningtimes. The Bodleian is absolutely magnificent. The tour...less so. Basically I got talked at for 30 minutes by an old man, and then eyed suspiciously through two more rooms where I unsuccessfully tried to sneak a picture of the Hogwarts library. I almost managed it. Here is what I came out with: 

Behind the desk on the left is Harry Potter's library

Maddi and a cheetah!

Still a pretty cool picture, with the added benefit of having been taken out of the side of my sweatshirt pocket.

Anyway, after the three room tour, I met up with Maddi, who also had the whole day free, and we went to the Pitt Rivers museum and the Natural History Museum. They were both marvelous, and too large to see everything. I did see the dodo that inspired Lewis Carroll, as well as many fabulous fossils and boneses. We also got to touch a cheetah!

After that, Maddi and I treated ourselves to delicious baguettes at Olives, and then cream tea at the Queen's Lane Cafe. Mmmmm. Nothing better than tea and scones with clotted cream and jam.

Then we met up with Hannah C and Kaylee and headed off for our next museum, the Ashmolean. If I thought the last museums were large, the Ashmolean is staggeringly overwhelming. We had already spent an hour in the Egypt exhibit, when we realized we had yet to leave the first floor. There are five floors. After that stunning realization, we skipped around a lot, and hit up Rennaissance art, pre-Raphaelites, and some cool ceramics, ending up utterly exhausted. Now, I have never been a huge fan of art, but I have increasingly found that pre-Raphaelite paintings are my absolute favorites, as in I actually care about them quite a lot, hence my insisting that we stop at that particular gallery. They really are gorgeous, and the detail is amazing! Anyway, moving on...the Ashmolean was exhausting. I stopped off at another cafe to read some Shakespeare, and got home just in time for a quick potty break before dinner! It was curry night, so ASE took us to an Indian restaurant, where we got unlimited poppadoms and naan, and one entre. SO DELICIOUS. So that was Tuesday.

Wednesday I went for a nice walk around Christchurch meadows in the morning, met a nice hobo who was a little bit drunk, and new all of the best bars in Bath. Unfortunately, I had another milkshake that did not make my tummy happy, so I spent the rest of the evening relaxing in my room being anti-social. Saved me the price of dinner, anyway. I had a leftover scone and little box of cereal. Gourmet!

Thursday I had another class, poo on that. After class though, our professor took us on a civil war tour of Oxford, which was fun and interesting. We had really beautiful weather all week, so we were always happy for an excuse to be outside. Continuing the outdoors trend, I walked over to Magdalen College (pronounced Maudlin because British people are weird), and had a nice lie-on-a-bench-and-read. We had our smart dress dinner that night, which was absolutely delicious, and completely free!

The view from my window...seriously

Friday we left Oxford. I honestly was really sad to go. It is an amazing city. The fact that there are about 50 or so 200 year old buildings all crowded around each other makes for some amazing sights. Understatement. I don't understand how people just walk around like this is normal! You literally cannot avoid these buildings, but people are just like oh nbd, just walking to work past this college established in 1249. I was in awe all week. The view from my window! GAH! Well they say a picture is worth a thousand of my rambling unable to get across my meaning words:

So maybe you can understand why I left this wondrous city, filled with bits of Rowling, Tolkien, Lewis, Carroll, and 800 years of fascinating history, not to mention some delicious baguettes and cream tea, with considerable regret.

Before we returned to Bath, however, we had one last stop.
May I present, for your perusal, Blenheim Palace:

Or should I say, about 1/3 of Blenheim Palace? It actually would not fit in the frame. While I did enjoy its magnificence, and the grounds were lovely, my mind kept going back to the absolute ostentatious-ness of it all. Really, Duke of Marlborough, really? You thought about 200 rooms would suffice? Why stop at 200? Oh I forgot, you also have a lake and fabulously large gardens. Not to mention the Butterfly hothouse, and the hedge maze that actually took us five minutes.  Leaving out the fact that we had to take an actual train from the main palace to reach the far end of the gardens, where the maze was.  You're right, I feel like all that is pretty sufficient for a place of residence. You wouldn't want to seem grandiose. No seriously. People currently live there. Well, in the East wing, to be specific. Because there aren't enough people in the UK to fill up Blenheim Palace.


That is basically it for Oxford, everyone! I hope you enjoy this blog post, because I am beginning to resent the amount of effort they require. I will be in Spain next week, so unless I write another post tomorrow, you won't hear from me for at least a week and a half. Deal with it.