Oxford: Anything But Ordinary

My day trip to Oxford University has to be the most English experience of my life.  Why, you ask?

First, it's Oxford.

Second, it's over 700 years old.

Third, our tour guide (more on this further down).

Upon our arrival, we served refreshments.  Pretty standard, right?  EXACTLY right!  In England, not only are you offered tea or coffee (yes, in that order), it comes in a real china cup, on a real china saucer ... because it would simply be improper to drink/hold your hot beverage without its saucer.  And refreshments would not be complete without the mandatory and delicious assortment of biscuits!

After properly refreshed, we attended a lecture by Oxford professor Alex May who told us all about and how to use the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,* of which he is a contributor and editor.  It is a huge collection (60 printed volumes, 1000 pages each) of biographies of deceased individuals who had a significant impact on Britain (i.e. being British isn't necessarily a criterion for inclusion).  I think the earliest personality was from the 4th Century CE.  It also includes fictitious people like Robin Hood, as well as Arthur and Merlin because of their significant presence in British heritage.

Following the lecture, we we served a very nice lunch in a large stone room, with long wood tables and benches, reminiscent of the Great Hall in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!!!

Here's the best part of the post - do you remember?  Mhmm .... the tour guide.  Picture this: a little thin and wrinkly woman, with short white hair, and a delightful scarf tied around her neck (because old ladies are always cold).  But, what made her so SO English was the fact that she uses phrases like "now we can't have that, can we?" and "it was positively awful!" and "they couldn't very well have done that!".  She was just the cutest thing, and quite a wealth of information!  We saw lots of stone buildings - because what else is there in Oxford? - most of them chapels or libraries (fun fact: because Oxford sits at the intersection of two rivers, flooding is common, which is why libraries there are often situated on the top floors of buildings and expand downwards as needed).  One of those libraries was actually used as the location of the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts library!

Entrance Hall

The Great Hall

Speaking of Harry Potter, JK Rowling attended Oxford, and parts of the films were shot on campus.  I actually stood in the Entrance Hall and the Great Hall of Hogwarts castle (as well as a few hallways of the magical wizarding world)!!

upper level of windows:
The Restricted Section

In addition to the world of JK Rowling, we saw the tree under which JRR Tolkien liked to sit when he wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.  We even got to see one of his original hand-drawn maps of Middle Earth, which was pretty exciting!  Other famous Oxfordians include C.S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia), Cecil Rhodes (think Rhodes scholars), and William Golding (Lord of the Flies).

To conclude (even though this was just a SLICE of what we did in Oxford), Oxford is very beautiful and very picturesque.  I hope I make it back there soon!

* It's proving to be an invaluable resource for initial research in my various classes.