Oxford

After my last Bath post I managed to get some photos up, as I'm sure you can see. I spent the rest of my first night in Oxford doing some much needed clothes washing. I also met one of my room mates, a girl called Kate from Sydney. She has graduated from Med school and is currently interning at a Sydney hospital.



The following morning was my first day exploring Oxford.



Another one of my room mates was a girl from Minneapolis called Lane. She is studying theatre and will be in London to study for a few weeks. She is travelling around England with her Aunt and Uncle before her course starts.



Kate was telling the both of us about the UEFA cup final which was on that night. As Lane was heading out to explore with her Aunt and Uncle, we decided that the three of us would meet up that night at the hostel and head out to a pub to watch the match - Lane had also only turned 21 the day before, so we were going to buy her a few drinks!



Kate told me about a 2 hour walking tour around Oxford that was on that morning that was supposed to be very good, so we decided to do it.



The tour guide was great. Her name was Ursula and was originally from Germany, but has been living in Oxford for 43 years. Her accent is very thick and she reckons that as the years go by the German gets thicker, rather than disappearing.



The tour was a lot of fun. Most of the colleges don't open until the afternoon, so there were only so many things the tour guide was able to show us. She took us to Jesus College and into the Dining Hall and the Chapel. The Dining Hall is so ornate and yet it is used every day by the students for breakfast, lunch and dinner.



We saw Exeter College (where Tolkien was an undergrad). She took us through the Covered Markets, which are absolutely stunning. It has the most gorgeous shops. There is this really amazing cake shop where you can stand and watch them frosting the different cakes. We went past St Marys Church and stopped to look at the Radcliffe Camera - absolutely stunning and its a pity you can't go inside - and then into the forecourt of the Bodleian Library. The tour didn't take us inside the library, so I was determined I was going to go back and see it. We also went passed New College (one of the oldest Colleges at Oxford) and into St Edmunds Hall. It was really fascinating and I find it amazing that these Colleges are tucked down little back streets and you wouldn't even know half of them were there. There are 39 colleges in total in Oxford, but it would be impossible to see them all.



After the walking tour Kate and I stopped and had lunch and then took a little back alley, called Magpie Lane, down to Merton College (which was closed), then we continued down the side of Merton College heading towards the river. Behind Merton College was a cricket oval and there were some young boys in their whites playing. It was nice just standing there and watching them play.



Beyond the cricket oval is Christ Church meadow and to the right of the meadow is the back end (the tourist entrance!) to Christ Church College. We decided to head down to the river and come back to see Christ Church a bit later. The walk down to the river is so beautiful. Christ Church meadow is literally that - a meadow. There were even cows!



I really wanted to head down to the river because the rowing Eights was starting that day and I really wanted to watch some of the races. When we got to the river we had to turn left and keep walking for quite a long time to get to the boat houses. Each college has a boat house with its own little dock and all of the students were down there in their colours getting ready to either cheer their team on or take part in one of the races. Kate and I found a nice spot on the grass and watched some of the races. It was great fun, but we had no idea how the race worked. It's all based around bumps, where you literally attempt to 'bump' the boat in front of you. I'm sure there is more to it than that, but I couldn't figure out what.



After a while we headed back to Christ Church College to have a look around. It is a rather amazing college, although rather snooty! They have a magnificent enclosed quod that was supposed to have a roof, but was never built. We managed to get there when the Dining Hall was open to visitors. In one of the windows in the hall is some small stained glass images from Alice in Wonderland. In amongst all of the family crests are these cute little rabbits and other creatures! It was really rather sweet.



After that Kate - who had a hop-on hop-off bus ticket that hadn't yet expired from the day before - decided to ride around a bit on the bus, while I decided to wander around the main street of Oxford and then head back to the hostel.



Once back at the hostel I managed to upload a few more of my photos before the three of us were due to meet up to go out to watch the soccer.



Lane and Kate both arrived back at the hostel around 6pm, so we headed out not long after. Not far from the hostel is an Irish pub called O'Neills, which looked pretty good, so we decided that would be our pub for the night. We had some burgers and a few drinks while we watched the match. The three of us had a great time. We didn't entirely know who we were cheering for, but we would cheer when the crowd cheered and boo when the crowd booed. It was fun. When the 30 mins of extra time started, we decided we'd had enough of standing, so headed back to the hostel and sat in the tv room with other people from the hostel and watched the rest of the match. I felt so sorry for the Chelsea guy when he slipped. The do-or-die penalty shootout is really stressful. We weren't even barracking for anyone and yet we were on the edges of our seats!

It was a really good night.

This morning both Kate and Lane were leaving, both for Stratford - weird coincidence!

It was hard saying goodbye, as we'd all gotten along so well, but I contented myself with a day exploring Oxford at my leisure.

Before I could head out I had to figure out what my next stop was going to be and how I was going to get there. Today is my last day in Oxford and I have to check out by 10am tomorrow morning, so it was rather important I have a direction to head in!

As I said in one of my previous blogs, I didn't think I would be able to get to Cambridge. Turns out that I can't get to Cambridge. There is absolutely no accommodation available. So, instead I decided to head to York (which was due to be my stop after Cambridge). I knew I was attempting to book my accommodation only the day before, but I haven't had a problem so far, so didn't think anything about it. All I can say was that it wasn't as easy as I'd hoped. It took me 3 hours to find somewhere to stay. In the end, I can't get in anywhere in York, so I'm going to have to go to Newcastle!!!

I know, completely insane.

What I didn't realise at the time is that it is a long weekend this week, with Monday a public holiday, so accommodation is booked solid everywhere! It's not tourists, but all the locals who are going away for the weekend. To make it worse, there are only 2 hostels in York, and one of them has closed for 6 months for rennovations. I could have booked into somewhere in York, but it was going to cost me a minimum of £60 per night. That is well and truly over my budget. I looked at Stratford-on-Avon, but that was full, so I decided to see how Newcastle was looking. There aren't many hostels and all of them were booked. I took a chance and called one of the hostels in Newcastle on the off chance that they had a walk-in bed free, and they were able to give me a bed for 3 nights! Yay! The saga, however, was not over at this point. While I had accommodation, I still had to find a way to get to Newcastle. The train was going to cost £80 to get me from Oxford to Newcastle, and I was going to have to change train stations in London. Bleh. It looked like the bus was going to be the best option. The cheapest bus fare I could find was £33, which isn't overly cheap, and it's going to take 8 hours to get from Oxford to Newcastle, but at least I have a way to get there. Yay! So, I leave Oxford at 11:30am tomorrow and get into Newcastle around 7:30pm. It's going to be a long day.

I didn't end up getting into Oxford to explore until lunch time today. Luckily nothing really opens until the afternoon, so I hadn't missed anything.

I had to do the Bodleian library, but you can't do it on your own, you have to go with a guide, so I bought a ticket for a 2 o'clock tour and then headed over to St Mary's church. You can climb to the top of the tower of St Mary's Church and you have the most amazing view over Oxford. It's not the easiest climb I've ever done (very narrow and steep spiral staircase), but the view was worth it. The Radcliffe Camera (large rotunda building, which now houses part of the Bodleian library) is only 5 metres from St Mary's Church, so you get a view of it from the tower that you just can't get on the ground. From the top of the tower you have 360 degree views over Oxford. It's very easy to spot the Colleges amongst all of the other buildings, because they all fly their flags from highest point of the College, so whatever direction you look in you can always see several flags fluttering.

I headed back to the Bodleian for the start of my tour. They take you through the old divinity school, which is below the Bodleian library, before taking you upstairs into the oldest part of the Bodleian library. It is absolutely amazing. The books are so old and beautiful. They used to chain the books to the shelves so that they couldn't be removed, and there are still a couple that are chained. It was just beautiful and I wish I could have seen the rest of the Bodleian library, but it's off limits to tourists. The Bodleian library is the second biggest in the UK and receives a truck full of new books every week. The Bodleian library was the first copyright library in the world, so they receive a copy of every book that is published in the UK every year and have been doing so since the 1600s. They have over 30 million books and it grows every day.

After the Bodleian library (which I could talk about all day), I had another walk through the covered market. It is just so beautiful and has some really interesting shops - the most gorgeous florist that I've taken photos of and will attempt to post sometime soon.

I wandered up to the Ashmolean museum, which is a museum that was a collection of one man's travels in the Victorian era. It is a funny little museum with an odd collection. The displays don't look like they've been touched since the Victorian period, with little hand written descriptions in each display case. I was particularly interested in seeing it because of the extensive Egyptian collection. It was rather amazing, and all crammed into 4 small rooms.

I wandered back from the Ashmolean into town and passed an open market that was just starting to close up for the day. I think it only opens once a week, so I'm a little disappointed I missed it.

After that I just decided to head back to the hostel and attempt to repack my suitcase yet again for the trip tomorrow. Wish me luck.

I'd best go, as I only have 1 min 14 sec before my internet expires! Will update again soon. Sorry this was so long!