Wanderings and Musings: day 4: adventure in Oxford

Dane wrote this post

The fourth day our jet lag was pretty bad. I woke up at about 12:30am fell back asleep until 3:30 and I couldn't sleep again, but this turned out to be an advantage as we had to be up around 5:30 to be on our bus to Oxford. we are having trouble charging our iPad and cell phone. both charge at about half the rate which is ironic given that in Europe you have double the voltage. shortly after this photo of us getting on the bus ( which had free wifi) my phone went dead and all of our pictures had to be awkwardly taken with the iPad.

we woke up too early for our hotel breakfast which has been toast and cereal every morning. we arrived in Oxford well before our tour started so we stopped at a local coffee house that advertised a "full English breakfast" of course I had to have this experience. everything pictured was fine except the sausage. the texture was super mushy as if they had put the meat into a blender. overall, like all British food, it was okay. they also serve beans for breakfast which are not awful.

after breakfast we went to our tour of the Oxford Bodleian library. the first room was built in the 1400s where heather is standing. it is crazy ornate room with beautiful ceilings. I can't imagine how students were able to concentrate in this room.

this picture is the courtyard of the library, so the library is a square that is 3 stories high. the library has had a big problem with space when sir Thomas bodliean made an agreement that any book published, the library would get a free copy. needless to say they ran out of space rather quickly and now keep most of their 12 million books underground at an off campus site. it takes over 300 miles of shelving for these books and the library takes in 6,000 books each week. the woman in the picture is our tour guide Fiona.

This was my favorite room. there were a couple rooms that we could not photograph for whatever reason so this was connected to the first room we walked in and obviously I was able to photograph. this room was built by th chancellor of oxford university in the early 1600s for the leadership as a meeting room to make decisions. notice his seat is the crazy big on in front of the window.

The wood in the room is English oak and is a beautiful almost black. it would be quite the intimidating room and when the doors are shut you feel locked in because of the black wood.

this is the quasi courtroom for the students of Oxford. students had the option Of being tried here or in the public courts when they did something wrong. typically it involved alcohol. it's good to know that Oxford continued the tradition of college debauchery and often got into fights With the local towns people. Oxford students were said to be privileged and having the choice of which court to be tried in (they always chose the school court) was one of the many reasons the townspeople didn't really like the students.

I of course got to sit where the judge would sit. he was probably some local Duke or Lord that had some extra time on his hands. this sounds just like me.

this place is called the Radcliffe Camera. 'Camera' in this case means one room. oddly enough there are 2 rooms in it, but hey that's the English way of doing things: making rules and then breaking them. this is the main library that heather would do all of her readings when she went here for a semester.

I'm not gonna lie, this is the best picture we've taken. granted, I had some pretty awesome things to photograph. this is Christ church which is actually a college (reference the above mentioned rule breaking) and there is a cathedral church behind it. Oxford university has over 40 colleges associated with it which I think is a bit superfluous, but heather likes the diversity even if it is not the most streamlined way of doing things. this is an example of why I take care of all the money.

another picture of christ church college

I needed a break after my Van Gogh like pictures or I'd leave my ear in England. this is the river Thames. yes for those of you that have been paying attention to the other posts, it's the same river that flows through london. this river is often used by students on crew and we saw a couple of out of shape middle aged men trying not to have a heart attack after this picture.

behind me is christ church college and I am facing the river Thames. you might be thinking that I am saying the the river wrong and that it should be ' the Thames river' but you would be wrong...and I don't know why.

heather in front of Christ church college

we were now famished at this point and heather wanted a meat pie.

and so she got one! again like all British food, it was just okay. think of it as a hot pocket meets a pot pie.

ok, this was a pretty cool spot. Jason Jellerson you better read this. in the book Fahrenheit 451, a woman burns herself with her house but not before quoting a man named Hugh latimar saying " play the man master ridley. we shall this day light such a candle , by gods grace that shall never be put out". this very spot was where Hugh Latimar and Nicholas ridley were burned at the stake by queen Mary aka bloody Mary. the men are known as the Oxford martyrs.

cool picture from the town looking toward Oxford university.

unfortunately, heathers college, trinity, was closed and this was the closest we could get. if you can see closely, notice the crest on heathers sweatshirt and the crest at the top of the gate. I told her it was like wearing a Metallica shirt to a Metallica concert to which she replied "who is Metallica?" *(ok, this is Heather interjecting- that last sentence is not even a little bit true)

this is the museum of natural history. it had some dead trees in front of it that were suppose to be cool, but given that there were 600 year old relics in oxford, who the heck cares about some dead trees. anyway, really I was bored and heather had to use the restroom here.

this is another college that heather thought was pretty cool looking. Keble college looks much different than rest of the buildings. it has red brick instead of the older looking tan bricks. kinda looks industrial revolution like. apparently this was a big deal when it was built in the late 1800s. I think the state of poverty in england at the time should have had a higher place in their minds, but this was more of sexy controversy than starving children.

Heathers flat that she stayed at when she was in Oxford. by the way for those of you that don't know, she was here the fall of 2005. her room was on the second floor. kind of a seedy place but apparently her friend Morgan's house was worse.

heather was so poor that I often had to send her money so she could eat. we weren't even engaged, but I thought it was a worthwhile investment anyway. she would spend that money on discounted meat from this local market.

this is Oxford university press where all the scholarly work is published.

and not far away is the eagle and child. famous pub frequented by Tolkien and c.s. Lewis. we went in to use the restroom but didn't buy anything.

another memorial to Hugh latimar and Nicholas ridley. I think for being burned at the stake they should get a bigger statue especially given the largeness of prince Alberts in London...he wasn't even a king and it's huge.