Today we took a bus out to Oxford to see the campus and museums. The bus had wifi on board (probably via satellite or something), which worked after some trouble. To our chagrin, we noticed that the camera battery was dead. If we were going to have any pictures in all of Oxford, they would have to be cellphone pics :(
When we got there, we wandered into a cafe to get a drink and noticed that the place had an Alice in Wonderland theme! This is one of Natasha's favorite books (along with the illustrations). Oxford is where the books were written by Lewis Carroll, so the town has some of the history embedded in it. This place even had Alice themed desserts such as "mad chocolate cake."
We paid to get into Christ Church because somewhere in that place was a stained glass window that had Alice in Wonderland pictures in it. Many famous people have studied there, including John Locke. Eventually we found the window - a shame the camera battery was dead, for my cellphone does not do well in low light and far off targets. This is as good as it gets:
We tried to go to the Oxford library but we didn't want to pay the exorbitant fee they wanted for entry and a tour. Instead we checked out some free exhibitions and bought a few postcards at the gift shop. In this picture, Natasha proudly demonstrates that women are allowed inside (which was not the case in Virgina Woolf's time, for instance):
Next we wandered around in a 4 story bookstore for awhile. They had some antiquarian books, which I always like to look at (but would never want to own!). After this it was lunchtime. It was then that I tried the only food item that I really hated in all of my trip - a pasty (the 'a' pronounced as in 'cat'). This is a food that goes back to the days of the industrial revolution, when miners had to eat their lunch down in the mine without washing their hands. The "handle" on the outside was so that they could hold the thing with their dirty hand and eat the rest of it, then toss out the part they were holding without eating (too much) coal or dirt. Anyway, mine was truly awful - I may have just gotten the wrong kind, because Natasha liked hers. I had what was supposed to be lamb & mint, something I absolutely love back home. Instead it tasted like...unsweetened spearmint on potatoes and I couldn't taste any lamb. Yech.
After lunch we went to the Science museum, where we got to see old microscopes, compasses, gloves, chemistry sets, and things like that. They had a glass-framed chalkboard on which Einstein had written one of his equations for a lecture, so we got to see his handwriting in the flesh. While we were there, a teacher was taking a group of boys in school uniforms through, explaining things, but mostly what Einstein's equation was all about. This was really intriguing until he ended his lecture with something about how science is still interesting even though it is eclipsed by theology. Those poor kids will have a tough go of it in the modern world.
After that, there was still the Natural History museum - dinosaurs! They didn't seem to have any real dinosaurs, just casts made from molds of real ones, but they were still awesome. They had a life-size T-Rex skeleton looming over the place! Around the walls the entire history of life was displayed, starting from the trilobytes, winding around the entire room to end up at modern man.
We couldn't stay long, however, because we were worried that the Oxford University Press would close, and it was nearing 5pm. We hurried down to the Press only to find that it isn't open to the public, and their small Print museum is open by prior appointment only. Not only that, but the bookstore that the Press runs is a few blocks away (very close to the Science museum, we had missed it by only a block or so) and was closed.
Still, it was an exciting day. We took the bus back to the hotel, which by now had working internet. For dinner we decided to try the famous fish & chips - Natasha *hates* fish and I don't normally care for it, but, when in Rome...
Natasha managed to actually eat some of the fish, and I ate most of my portion. We were given too much :)
No comments:
Post a Comment