Well, this post will be significantly shorter than last week's, much to your relief I'm sure. Monday was rather uneventful. I went to school and tried to get a lot of work done because Tuesday two friends and I were going to Oxford for the day. I did get quite a bit done, but still not as much as I would have liked. Ah well.
Tuesday we started off at 6:30am because we had to take the bus from Poole to Bournemouth to catch our coach to Oxford. We thought we were going to have to take a train for 38 pounds, but then my flatmate told me that there is a coach from Bournemouth for cheap. We looked it up and ended up getting tickets for only 14 pounds. So that was awesome! We got to Bournemouth and caught our coach with plenty of time. It was then about a 2 hour ride to Oxford. We saw some nice sights on the way, but I slept through a bunch of the ride. Not comfortably, but still...Anyway, we finally got there and stopped in at a really cute coffee shop in an old building to get some coffee and a quick snack. Then we headed off to find the visitor center to get a map of town. We were appalled to find out that you had to pay for a map. Everywhere else we've been they just give you a map, but not stupid Oxford :(
After buying a map we proceeded on our walking tour that was laid out in it. We set off from where we had gotten coffee and headed toward Christ Church College, one of the colleges that make up Oxford University. It is the one that the Harry Potter school look is based on and I think part of the movie was filmed there. I'm not sure though. When we got to the college we wanted to go in but the great hall (where they eat) wasn't open until after 2:30 so we decided to go back later and kept going on our walk. Prior to this we had already been lost and blamed Sytske's poor map reading skills, but we found out shortly that the map wasn't really all that great as Mieke got us lost as well. But that ended up okay because we saw some nice garden areas and then found an old fashioned candy shop. It was quite adorable. While we were in it we saw people walking around with black robes on. We think they must have been graduating that day as lots of them were covered in confetti and silly string and stuff, but some of them weren't and were just hanging out at shops and stuff. It was pretty weird to see people in robes, but we didn't want to be weird and take pictures of them so you won't be able to see any. Sorry. Side note: the robes were strange in that they were sleeveless and just past the bum. They also had long "wings" hanging off the shoulders. Very interesting.
We passed the Bodlean Library and headed for the Pitt Rivers/Natural History Museum. It was free, which was great because it was more a curiosity cabinet than a museum. Pitt Rivers was an antiquarian who did a lot of the early archaeology in Britain. He had a lot of junk from all over the world though. The building was very cool with some cool skeletons, but most of them were just replicas of skeletons that are actually housed elsewhere, so it was kind of weird. We didn't spend too much time there as it was pretty hot inside and it wasn't well labeled or lighted so it was a bit disappointing. We decided to head back to the Bodlean Library and see what we could there. Turns out if you want to see anything besides the outside you have to pay to take a guided tour. We didn't really want to do that so we looked around the courtyard a bit and then headed to get some lunch. We ate in this little church basement cafe. It was pretty good, but they put a giant chunk of dill in my salad, which was weird. I didn't eat it.
After lunch we continued our walking tour and then headed back to Christ Church College to see inside. We had to pay to go in here as well, but since it was what we really wanted to see we were okay with that. It was pretty cool, but not nearly as big as I imagined. The great hall had 3 long tables and a head table, but they packed them into that space. It would not be an enjoyable place to eat I don't think, but they do eat in there. The church was very pretty though. They have a really beautiful organ and some pretty stained glass. We then headed out through some courtyards and the library. Then it was getting to be around the time we needed to catch our coach back so we started heading back to the bus station. We grabbed another coffee and snack near the station while waiting and discussed our impressions. Overall we were all a bit disappointed in Oxford. I expected the entire city to be more spire-y and old and only some of the colleges were like that. Plus you couldn't see much because most of the colleges are closed to visitors and the ones you can go into you have to pay. So yeah, I'm glad we went, but it isn't somewhere that I'd return to.
Wednesday I was so beat that I slept until almost noon and didn't make it to campus. I did some work at home, but not nearly enough. Thursday I went to campus and stared at the microfiche reader, but I wasn't really feeling it :( Friday I called Sara to make more plans for our trip to Italy. We have our hostels, plane and train tickets booked. Now we just have to figure out our itinerary and what tickets we can buy ahead of time to skip queuing. I'm doing Rome and Sara's doing Venice and Florence. Exciting!
Saturday me and Sytske went to Slug and Lettuce to study and it was packed! So we had to leave because we never actually order anything other than coffee and didn't want to take up a table that they could use to make actual money. We ended up at Starbucks which was okay for awhile but then started to get really busy and loud after a couple of hours so we left. We stopped at the store to get food for dinner. We found a prestuffed chicken so we got that and some veg to roast. When we got home we realized that it didn't have cooking instructions on it. So I had to google some. But it turned out really good. The chicken got done before the veg, but we just had to wait a little bit longer and the chicken didn't get cold or anything. It ended up being a very good dinner. Then we went for a walk and as we were heading toward the quay fireworks started. I don't know why they were doing fireworks, but it was nice to see them. Then we headed home and I went to bed as I was pretty beat.
Today I have to look up opening times for things in Rome and put together a list of things I need to discuss with my advisor on Monday. This week will be sad because everyone is going away or having visitors. Hopefully that means that I will get a lot of work done. I want to go to the library at Southampton University but when I was looking at their website I realized I might need permission to be in there. I emailed them on Saturday, but haven't heard back. My advisor used to work there so I'll ask him. I just don't want to get all the way there and then have to turn around and come right back because I don't have a pass or something. So we'll see. They have a bunch of the books that I need and it would be much easier to use them this way then having the library here get them sent to me.
So that was my week. Not very productive and not very Harry Potter-y ;) Here are the pictures.
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