July 27 - Panorama from St Mary's Church
Oxford is well known as a centre of
culture, education and tradition. In
keeping with this, we went to see The Simpsons movie... It is also important to mention that Tash
managed to buy a couple of new jackets for the English summer (raining here
most of the time – in fact we nearly didn’t make it due to the flooding around Gloucestershire),
and that Oxford is home to quite possibly the two best milkshake shops in the
world (Moo-Moos and Shakeaway). Examples
of flavours include rice krispy square marshmallow rocky bar, lime and orange
tic tacs, and the classic milkshake flavour, nutri-grain. Oh yes, and managed to find a very good piece
of caramel slice too!
However, around these important activities we
did manage to fit in quite a bit of touring, thanks to the advice of our kind
hosts Andrew and Lisa (and Greta, Anneka and Finn of course!) and the help of
the Oxford Dodo guide book (if you’re planning on wandering around the colleges
and other university buildings it is definitely worth purchasing a copy – from Blackwells
of course!!!).
July 29 - Finn and Lisa
We followed the book
pretty carefully, so at least walked past most of the colleges but managed to
find the time to have a closer look at Christ Church college, the Bodleian
library, the Radcliffe camera and St Johns College. We also climbed St Mary’s Cathedral tower
which, although not quite as high as St Paul’s in London, is still quite
impressive for 360 degree views of the old city and college grounds. Having not been to all of them, it’s hard to
comment on which ones are best to visit but Christ Church was very impressive
and notably is featured in the Harry Potter movies (yep, there’s that culture
coming back again). I would love to have
more time to go through more of these buildings (actually, I’d quite like to
come study here...) but if you are visiting, make sure you are well
organised.
July 27 - Hogwarts, er I mean Christ Church
All the colleges charge a
small entry fee and take a little while to get through. They also have limited opening hours. If you want to see the old Bodleian library
and the Radcliffe Camera from the inside you must do a tour, which is well
worth it anyway.
At the risk of some renewed American
bashing, I need to relate an experience we had standing behind four American
women in the queue for Christ Church College.
The group consisted of a woman in her 70s, 2 middle aged women and a
teenager, who argued (loudly, rudely, americanly) that they were a “family” and
therefore should only have to pay the “family” ticket price (which would have
saved them about 4 pounds...). That one
doesn’t work at Disneyland ladies, why the hell would it work somewhere which
has guys in top hats guarding the doors???
As I mentioned before we were lucky enough
to stay with our former lecturer/colleague/friends Andrew and Lisa and their
kids.
July 27 - Tash trying to use Avada Kedavra on Marcus (if you don't know what I'm talking about you probably need to read the Harry Potter books...)
They live a little out of Oxford
city and so we also sampled a bit of the country side, including the berry farm
just down the road and some traditional scones with jam and cream (except that
Tash does not like jam or cream, so just had scone). We managed to play a good game of Settlers of
Catan (which of course Marcus lost, with Tash narrowly beating Andrew for the
prize).
Mostly, Oxford was a good opportunity to
relax and enjoy England for a few days before moving on again. I’m sure I’ll be back here at some point...
