Oxford and other tales

We just returned from Oxford where we stayed at University College for a week. The rooms we stayed in were fantastic. They had a large living room and then separate bedrooms for two people. It was very cosy though it was always cold no matter where you went. The buildings were made of stone and I felt like I was living in a castle, which I had absolutely no objections to.

The Main Quadrangle, though calling it a courtyard is more fitting.

 Then every time I ate I felt like I was in the Great Hall at Hogwarts. I should have taken better pictures because these don't give the full effect. It had high a high ceiling with painted wooden rafters and stain glass windows along the walls. The tables had benches instead of chairs which resulted in quite a few banged up knees, but the bruises were worth it.

 The Marks of Genius exhibition was in Oxford at the Bodleian Library. It was a collection of the library's most important artifacts such as the original conducting score of Handel's Messiah, The Gutenberg Bible, the dust jacket design by Tolkien for The Hobbit, so much more. I did get pictures, but there were so many people at the exhibition that I didn't have time to check the quality of my photos. As a result some of them are blurry.


 Then after sitting around for the whole week working on homework I got out and went to the Natural History Museum in Oxford. This one of the high lights of the week for me. The majority of the museum was animal skeletons displayed out in the open. As odd as it was being so close to skeletons it was also fascinating studying them up close. I learn some things about about animal bone structures that I never knew.

 Like this Bison for example. I didn't know that they had bones going up from there spine and then the claws of a polar bear point up rather than going straight out.

 One of the most fascinating experiences of the museum was comparing myself to the sheer size of some of these animals. Though I have seen most of these animals one tv or at the zoo I didn't have the right idea for their size.

 I could walk under these elephants without ducking my head and the T rex was more than twice the size of the elephants.

This is the skeleton of the last Dodo bird in Europe. It was stuffed until the 1800s, but had degraded so much that it was stripped down to the skeleton.


















On our final night at Oxford we all dressed up and went to dinner in the Great Hall. (Not really it's name, but it's much more fun to say.) There was an over abundance of eating utensils and Latin grace as part of the traditions of Oxford. The food was all fantastic, but I favorite part of the meal was the dessert. It was white chocolate and raspberry ingot with mint and it was the bet dessert I have ever tasted. I wil forever be in search of this dessert.

After dinner one of my tutors was to provide entertainment. He told us a story of a man who went to Oxford and had written a song which was to be performed for us. He told us the man's life story making us laugh at almost every detail and gradually we started suspecting that this story was completely made up. By the time the man died in a tragic picnic accident we were sure that it was all an elaborate tale, and then he pulled out a guitar that he had told us he wouldn't play and started playing what sounded like Home on the Range, before changing. He mash up an least twenty different songs together into his tune consisting of Yesterday by the Beatles and Scarborough Fair. He was and excellent guitar player and if he weren't an Oxford professor he could make a living on being a comedian.

We went back the Bath the next day and as much as I loved Oxford it was nice being in a familiar place again.

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it.