Oxford

Monday was the first day that dawned without a single cloud in the sky. To take advantage of the clear weather we decided to go to Oxford for the afternoon. I downloaded a walking tour, read up on some of the sites, and we headed out. We arrived without a hitch, but then drove by accident into a private car park and got stuck once the bollard came up and had to wait for someone to come with a clicker to let us out and looked like stupid Americans, but we then finally found the proper lot and walked into town.

Oxford is made up of a bunch of smaller colleges (the smallest college is 500 students) which each have their own courtyard, dining hall, chapel, and pub. We arrived at the first college on the tour and discovered it was $3 a person to walk in. Calculate about 10 colleges and this was looking a bit pricey. Hmmm, this snag was worse than the private car park. But fortunately right then we came across a guy hawking a tour which for the price included access to the 7 colleges or so we would visit. And the best part? The dining hall used for the Harry Potter movies was included. John was sold!

It was a great tour, everything was beautiful, it made me homesick for college days. My favorite part were the gargoyle heads-of-scholars. Afterwards we had tea and scones and then visited the Bodleian Library, one of the oldest libraries in Europe, the first copyright library, and the first to have a catalogue. Did you know books used to be chained to the bookshelf? Terrible for the books, and it meant they had to be put in backwards so the call numbers were written on the face of the cut pages. They've left a few of the books like this so you can see. The best part, though? King Charles II was told that nobody could take a book out of the library and so he had to come down, check in, and read his book at the carrel (still attached to the chain). I like thinking about how tough that librarian must have been!