Adventures in Oxford

This post is long overdue, but I've had exams and essays this past week that have taken priority. And I apologise in advance for how photo heavy it is.

On 2 March, I took a trip to Oxford with the ISA (International Students Association). It wasn't an organised tour or anything, but it was 17 for the bus there and back, which is cheaper than getting the train on my own, so a few of my Erasmus friends also got tickets. It was an early start- the bus left at 7.15 (well, it was meant to leave at 7.15 but it was closer to 7.30 by the time we actually started moving). I sat with my friend Chantal and we had a lovely chat for the start of the three and a half hour bus ride. It turns out she's had a class in Utrecht with one of my favourite youtube beauty vloggers, Loepsie!! So that was the exciting discovery of the morning :-)

The bus ride took longer than I expected, but we were on the ground in Oxford by around 11.30 I think, if I remember correctly. We headed straight towards Christ Church as our first stop. It was originally a very grey, dreary, windy day, unlike the sunshine in York, but the town of Oxford is still quite lovely.

Look who we met in the coach park?

Christ Church was far larger than I thought, and it had what I imagine will be lovely grounds once it's spring again! There was nearly no queue to get tickets to go in, so we went in once we got there, even though the Great Hall (from Harry Potter) wasn't opening until 2.30 pm. It's 5.50 for student tickets, and the tickets were valid for the whole day so we could come back later and jump the queue to go into the Hall. The buildings are lovely, and it was amazing to see the famous courtyards I've seen in a billion different tv shows and movies.

The first view when you enter the gates.

Please note the lack of a queue in the garden! 

It actually was 2.30 for today

The staircase from Hogwarts in the first two films! Chantal snuck past the closed sign to snap some photos :-)

No Peel door

Oh hey, that looks familiar

Just pretending I got to Oxford, no big deal

I really enjoyed the Cathedral as well! It had really interesting bays in the ceiling, and nice stained glass, although it's quite small compared to most cathedrals! I looked for graves of people who I might know, since some famous historical figures are meant to be in Oxford, but the only one I could find was John Locke, right by the entryway to the cathedral.

SO COOL

While I was in the courtyard, my friend Wyatt from Wooster called and thus began a long game of phone tag and hide and go seek in Oxford's tourist spots as we tried to meet up. He's studying abroad at Oxford in St. Catherine's college. Chantal, Kelly (another American studying at York), and I ended up going to the covered market to find some lunch, and finally Wyatt found us there! We had some lovely pasta from an Italian pasta shop, and then went to a special hot chocolate/chocolate shop for dessert. I got Irish Cream flavoured hot chocolate, which was delicious, and there were other odd flavours like gingerbread.

The covered market

Henry the Hoover cupcakes! Hoover = vacuum, for my American friends, and we have one of these in my hall :-)

Such a delicious lunch!

Chocolate shaped like pringles???

Wyatt and I

After that we wandered around the rest of Oxford. It was finally sunny and a bit warmer, which was nice! First stop was the Bodleian Library and the Radcliffe Observatory. There were some odd street performers about as well, including a Mad Hatter tour guide and a fire juggler just chilling by a college. There was an awesome free exhibit at the Bodleian about depictions of love in Persian manuscripts, which my history/art history/Middle Eastern nerd side FREAKED about. Sorry to Chantal, Kelly, and Wyatt who were subjected to my babbling on about manuscript production, Arabic calligraphy, and illumination techniques, but I did just take Islamic Art last semester in Wooster. (And this exhibit may have sparked a new I.S. topic idea, although who knows, that changes on a monthly basis).

Me in front of the Radcliffe Observatory

Bodleian courtyard

Just chillin with my fire throwing friend

Mad Hatter tour guide in the Bodleian

The gift shop was a great success as well, I got gifts for some of my Wooster friends (with some input from Wyatt haha) and a book about Germans and WWII plans relevant to my Junior I.S. in case I do continue down that path next year- it's a translation of a copy of the book in the Bodleian, of which very few survived WWII. And I also bought a TON of postcards, some with Alice and Wonderland characters, others with J.R.R. Tolkein related images, and some from the Persian exhibit, some of which are decorating my room and others are for messages home :-)

After that, we went to the Ashmolean, which is a super amazing museum, and I'm sad we only got to stay in there for a little while. We went through an interesting exhibit about restoration and preservation of different object types, and how museums work. There were lots of interactive aspects, and we went to town trying to figure things out and playing with them. We then wandered around Oxford, looking for different sights, like the Bridge of Sighs, and other colleges to look at. There are 38 colleges in Oxford University, and nearly all of them were closed to visitors for the day, so we saw a lot of really cool doors and crests, but no interesting interiors and historical locations.

Ashmolean Museum 

Bridge of Sighs

After that we parted ways with Wyatt, so he could go back to his college and we could return to the Great Hall in Christ Church. When we got there, there was a HUGE queue to buy tickets! We jumped the line because we already had tickets, and went striaght to the Great Hall staircase, but there was yet another HUGE queue- it went up the stairs, through the entryway out about halfway down the huge courtyard. So we got in line, and waited, although there were some issues with queue-jumpers and others holding up the queue and just all kinds of cultural differences appearing between Americans, English, and Asian tourists (and I've never said queue so many times in one day, wow). But the queue moved along quite quickly, and soon we were in the Great Hall! It seems smaller than I thought it would be, but there is definitely a resemblance to Hogwarts :-) There was a lunch party going on, so the poor students ended up being in everyone's photos while they were trying to eat haha. Afterwards we went to the Christ Church giftshop and there were Harry Potter wands for sale! I didn't get one though, since i have one back home from the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and if I'm going to get one in England, it will be from the studio tour in London.

The massive queue after 2.30 to get tickets

Hi from Hogwarts xx 

The Great Hall with the tables set for dinner :-)

Creeping on the lunch party 

Finally, we wandered around town a bit before we had to be back on the bus. There are some really lovely buildings all around Oxford, and there was a hot air balloon randomly flying through the sky. There was also a graduation ceremony somewhere in the afternoon for Christ Church, so I was creeping on the students in their robes and stoles whenever they showed up haha.

Graduating students in the courtyard

Overall it was a lovely, although exhausting day. I passed out on the bus ride back! I'd like to go back and see more of the colleges that were closed to the public, as well as see more of the Ashmolean if I can manage it. Thanks for reading through all of this, if you did! There were a ton of photos, I'm sorry, but I take ridiculous amounts of photos everywhere I go!