Oxford

This past Saturday, we took a trip to Oxford, our first trip outside of London! It was amazing to be at the oldest University in the UK, educating students since the late 11th Century. After the train from London (about an hour), we met our tour guide and made our way into town. Oxford University has 38 distinct colleges, 8 of which solely admit postgraduate students. Students are admitted into a single college within which they complete their degree.

Classes don't start until the first week in October, so we saw very few of them, but in a stroke of luck, we found that it was an "Open Door" weekend, and areas which are usually off limits to the public were made available. As a result of this, we got to visit New College, the location for filming of a scene from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

After this, we visited the pub where Bill Clinton famously "Did not inhale" during his year spent as an Oxford student.

The architecture of the city was stunning, and it gave an aura of old knowledge, though also one of elitism. Everywhere you looked, the buildings and grounds reinforce the idea that students going to Oxford are destined for great things, which is difficult to refute considering they have graduated 25 British Prime Ministers, 28 foreign presidents, and 48 Nobel Laureates, but also enforces that the Oxford student is more important than the average citizen solely for attending the university. It makes the place feel somewhat unwelcoming to outsiders, and I can only imagine how this is magnified when the town is populated with students. 

A functioning dining hall. What kind of messages
does this send to the students who eat here?

However, we Harry Potter fans did get another thrill. Outside the dining hall pictured above (which was used as inspiration for the Great Hall in the films) was the staircase by which Harry, Ron, Hermione, and the other first years entered Hogwarts for the first time! 

Also used as the entrance in Chamber of Secrets

After the tour, I went to the History of Science Museum. While mostly full of boring instruments, they also had blackboard used by Einstein in one of his lectures to Oxford on his Theory of Relativity, and a flask containing an original culture of Penicillin!

From there, we visited a pub frequented by both JRR Tolkein and CS Lewis during their time at Oxford and beyond (and where Lewis first distributed a proof of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe!). 

Our day concluded with some pub fare back at the Turf Tavern where Bill did not inhale, and former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke DID inhale, though in his case it was a yard of ale (11 seconds!?).

From here, we moved on to a very nice cocktail bar, where they made all the ingredients in-house and then painstakingly combined them into perfect drinks, for a nightcap before getting back on the train home. All in all, it was a long day, but a fun one and definitely worth the trip! I am continuously amazed by just how much history England manages to pack into such small areas.