It Comes in Pints? I'm Getting One

Once more, life and travel in and around London has forced me to put off my blogging. But I'm back and ready to fill you in with everything I've done for the past three days (over the course of three blogs)

On Wednesday, we spent the entire day in Oxford. Now, my parents tell me that I was there eleven years ago but I do not remember. Still, it was an amazing experience. Oxford is located about an hour or so outside of London, and we traveled there by train. We traveled through the industrial parts of the city and suddenly found ourselves in the vicinity of Oxford University. It's beautiful buildings dominate the landscape and the architecture ranges from old English Gothic to the Renaissance, to modern day commercial architecture.



We received a tour of the Bodleian (above), which I posted about on my other blog. You can access that here. Then we were allowed some free time to get lunch an explore. Melissa, Jenny, and I took advantage of the tour guide's generosity to see another part of the library, the Radcliffe Camera (on your left), and then had lunch at a small cafe under a church. Then we went through The Museum of the History of Science, but had to cut that short to meet up with our group at Christ's Church College.

We went through the grounds, seeing the Great Hall (which was actually used as the Great Hall in Harry Potter), and then saw the church itself. We then got a personal tour of the library (right), which is much smaller than the Bodleian but has its own distinct charms. After that tour, we were once more left to our own devices so the three of us rushed to the Ashmolean Museum, a very famous museum of Art and Archaeology. We went through the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman areas, and then saw a Stradivarius. Several major nerd moments occurred.

We ended the day with a pint and some food at the Eagle and the Chive. This is where several famous Oxford attendees used to hang out, most notably Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. It was so cool to be there and I finally got a beer that I truly enjoyed. And the bartender informed me that I was a serious drinker. Still trying to figure out of that's a compliment or not....I'm taking it as a compliment.

We made it back to the train through some rain and were back in London within an hour. Our trip to Oxford was a great way to celebrate the Fourth of July but it seemed very surreal. I definitely missed not being in America for the holiday and plan on being there next year.