Oxford

So yesterday Melissa and I went to Oxford. Oh man. Best place ever.

We took waaay too many trains to get there, but it was worth it. We get off the train and start to walking to the tourist information center when we hear this lute and drum music. Since this is kindof weird, even in England, we follow it and find ourselves in the middle of a folk festival where the Morris Folk Dance Competition is taking place in the street. Um, coolest thing ever! It was all these different teams dressed in crazy costumes from traditional folk outfits to neon rags, all wearing war paint. We were fascinated. We stayed for a bunch of teams and then started talking to various people which made it even better. The all male team from Norwich were our favourties. They were hilarious and super nice and were pretty good dancers.

After that we did our own walking tour of the Inklings’ sights around Oxford. We saw the Eagle and Child pub, where they all hung out once a week and talked about their current writing projects, and then we went and saw a bunch of the colleges. Christ Church is where Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carrol, Alice in Wonderland), John Wesley, William Penn and a billion other famous people went, and more importantly, it’s where a bunch of scenes from Harry Potter were filmed. I can tell why, the whole cite looks like Edinburgh where Rowling wrote them. All the schools were gorgeous. Then we walked to University College, the first college in Europe, which was closed but we still snuck in. Then we concluded with Magdalen College where Lewis was a Fellow for 29 years.

It was a great day. It was really meaningful to see where two of my all time favourite authors lived and worked, and the city of Oxford is wonderful. Not to mention the guys there. It was kind of ridiculous, they shouldn’t let that many attractive men live in one place. Come on Oxford. Share the wealth.