Oxford Week

My program spent this past week at University College in Oxford. Ostensibly one of the first universities in the country, the campus is basically built around two small quads and is separated from the city center by castle-like walls, gates, and a large heavy wooden door (apparently because, for several interesting reasons, town-gown relations weren't exactly wonderful until quite recently).

Anyway, I could write pages and pages about Oxford, but instead I will do another photo-based post. Suffice it to say that I feel in love and there is no turning back.

This is part of the main quad at University College. I know, so ugly, right?

This is where we ate breakfast and lunch every day and had our fancy final dinner with our tutors.

This was my adorable single. I want to live there forever. 

They provided me with tea and shampoo and things!

Here is the view from two of my three windows...

And at sunset, the rooftops look like something from Mary Poppins!

One of the first things I did was visit Alice's Shop, an entire shop dedicated to all things Lewis Carroll. It was the actual shop that the real Alice visited, and the one that Carroll's Sheep Shop is based on.

Another day one of my friends convinced me to go on a creepy tour of Oxford Castle with her. It used to be a prison and the tour involved creepy noises and a tour guide in period costume and lots of narrow, windy spiral stairs leading up to a tower. Despite not being a fan of scary things or heights, it was surprisingly fun!

This is a super cool room with lots of words all over the walls about how miserable it was for the prisoners. I kind of want to decorate my room like this.

Apparently Geoffrey of Monmouth taught there for a few months. While the guy is not dressed in the right type of clothing, he's supposed to represent Geoffrey and his students. Pretty cool, right?

Aaaannndd I went to the Bodleian Library. No big deal or anything. But it's actually as beautiful as the Beast's library and I kind of wanted to stay there forever. Also, we got to walk by where they filmed  library scenes for Harry Potter.

This is where Oscar Wilde's trial was held while he was at Oxford.

And this is the Hospital Wing at Hogwarts. AKA the room they had us hang out in while we waited for our tour at the Bodleian.

This is the outside of Christ Church, where we got to tour.

Here I am, just casually resting my hand where tiny Potter hands have touched. (This is the staircase up to the Great Hall).

And then we got to look around the room that inspired the Great Hall of the films.

One night a bunch of us went to the Eagle and Child! Except for the American Top 40 pop music they played, it was a completely lovely experience. I had my traditional salad and chips (<--- do you like the British vernacular I threw in there?) and basked in the experience of eating in such a significant literary location.

We also went to the Oxford Museum of Natural History and saw, among other things, the dodo that inspired the Dodo of Carroll's book.

This is the Pitt-Rivers Museum. The way the room was arranged was so interesting! This is also where i got to see the trepanned skull that Lyra looks at in the His Dark Materials trilogy.

And finally, on the way home we stopped at Blenheim Palace. Although I wasn't a huge fan of the tour and didn't find the inside that interesting, the outside was absolutely beautiful!