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!

Pictures and things

So today I realized that I haven't shared anything about the trip we took the weekend before last to Stonehenge, Salisbury, and Lacock. This is unacceptable, and thus I am going to fill this post with a virtual (summarized) tour of my trip.

We started out at Stonehenge. Can't you just see Tess wandering around, being super angsty and getting captured?

See? This is proof that I actually went there.

Obligatory jumping photo time! We were semi-successful. The jumping gentlemen are the director of the program (on the far left) and the internship coordinator (two to the right of me). I think our group basically spent half our time at Stonehenge attempting to get good jumping photos. This was the best we could do.

Next we went to Salisbury Cathedral. It's really old and really beautiful! This is what it looks like from sort of far away.

And this is what it looks like a little closer.

And this is what (part of) it looks like on the inside...

And some more.

And then we went to Lacock. If you don't already know, you'll see why this is insanely exciting in a minute. This is the outside of the Abbey as were walking towards the entrance.

Starting to look familiar?

Where our favorite boy wizard used to spend his idle hours...

Yes, ladies and gentlemen. I got to visit Hogwarts.

Where is the Grey Lady?  

Did you know that Hogwarts is actually in Cranford?

Cranford with cars...

Who knew that Professor Slughorn's (borrowed) house was so conveniently located!

No, I didn't steal that from Google Images. I was actually there!

I hope you enjoyed this brief tour. Please come again soon!

Sir Ian Sir Ian Sir Ian

So last night I got Ian McKellan's autograph. And then we had a semi-conversation with him. I am honestly still freaking out about it!!

On Thursday night several of us went to see him in The Syndicate, which was in Bath this past week. Last night most of my housemates and I went to the stage door in an attempt to get his autograph. I was the first in line, and to say that we were slightly terrified would not be an exaggeration. After several other actors came out, he finally emerged. I asked him if he would mind signing my program. He said that he didn't, put down his suitcase, took my sharpie, and promptly went to take a picture with one of the other actor's family. Which means (not to be, you know, embarrassingly fangirl-ish or anything) he temporarily stole my (well, one of my house mate's) sharpie! He then came back and graciously signed my program (and gave me back the sharpie). As he was moving on to sign the programs of the rest of the lovely ladies I came with, he asked us how we liked the show, where we were seated (for the record, as far away as possible), and if we could see and hear alright from so far back (so lovely!). He let us know that if we were interested, we could see some of the other productions of the playwright's work on youtube. One of my housemates got up the courage to ask him if many of the author's plays have been translated into English, and he replied that most of them had not. We thanked him again and departed, completely high on having talked with Ian McKellen. Can I just reiterate one more time that not only did we get autographs, but we talked to Gandalf last night!!

I made it!

Can I just take a moment to say how much I love it here? I love it here! The city is beautiful, the house I’m living in is comfortable, and I’m surrounded by interested, intelligent American students who love discussing every nerdy thing that I love to discuss (* cough cough * Doctor Who Harry Potter period dramas children’s literature * cough cough * ). Today I wandered around the city, enjoying the sunlight and the street performers.

My room is on the second floor (well, they call it the first floor here) of a four-floor house in a “posh” neighborhood about 10 minutes from the study center. It has creaky floorboards and is much narrower and colder than at home, but I love it! I get along really well with all of the girls in my house (and everyone on the program, for that matter). I think what really sealed the deal was our mutual fascination with Victorian Pharmacy, a competition show on the BBC that we discovered while attempting to watch Bridget Jones’s Diary. We got quite distracted, as you can imagine.

Orientation has been fairly helpful and definitely a good way to get to know the staff and other students on the program. We’ve also had plenty of time to explore the city, go shopping for things we’ve left behind, and find lots and lots of good, inexpensive sandwich shops, cafes, and cafes. We’ve even had time to get library cards, which (as you probably already know) is one of the first things I did. I know I will be saying this in every post of this blog, but I find it hard to describe how incredible it feels to walk down the street to grab lunch and pick up conditioner and to walk past places like this: 

On Wednesday we had a special tour of Bath Abbey. Like the rest of Bath, it is incredibly old and incredibly beautiful. It was built three times, first as an Anglo-Saxon Abbey Church in 757, then as a Norman cathedral in 1090, and finally (more or less how it is today) it was rebuilt in 1499 and completed in 1611. And they served us tea and cakes!

Today Andrew Butterworth, the internship coordinator, took me to see my internship placement at the American Museum. It was a really lovely experience! The building the main part of the museum is housed in was where Winston Churchill gave his first political speech. I had tea with Andrew and one of my supervisors at the museum, and we shared a “Connecticut Snickerdoodle” (what makes it from Connecticut I have no idea) at a table outside. Andrew gave me a very speedy tour of the museum, and I’m very excited to get a chance to go back and look around in more detail. Also, there is a Marilyn Munroe exhibit there until some time in October, and the first thing I saw when I walked into the room was the sheer, sparkly dress she wore in Some Like it Hot! Tonight we will be going to a fancy reception at the Victoria Art Gallery and we will get to schmooze with our tutors, and tomorrow we will be checking out the local farmer's market, so keep an eye out for an update!