Oxford or Bust

[Tuesday, July 25, 2023]

As suspected, sleep found us easily this night after a long day of flying and some walking around Windsor Castle. I woke up and thought, "Well, that was a refreshing sleep. I wonder what time it is?"  As it turns out, it was 3:30 AM local time. 😐. 

Apparently our body clocks are not as easily changed as our cell phone clocks. Laureen and I chatted a little and noted that it was just too early to get up. I checked my phone to see that I had received a rather important e-mail that I needed to deal with so I texted the person and we dealt with the matter at hand.  I mentioned that it was 3:30 AM and he asked if I was partying. If you call dealing with your circadian rhythms at 3:30 AM partying, then the answer is yes. Spent some time trying to go back to sleep and was somewhat successful. 

When I actually woke up for a second time, it was a more reasonable hour. We both had showers to start the day as I think we were getting a bit "gamey" from our lengthy travel the day before. It's surprising how a nice shower can make you feel so refreshed. Slight issue with the in-room coffee machine; it seems it has to be turned on to actually function. 😉.

Breakfast was at a quaint little place just a few doors down from the hotel. We both had a plate of poached eggs, ham, mushrooms, a tomato, brown beans, a hash brown and some toast. Washed it down with a cafe mocha for each of us. Ahhhh. Now back to the room to grab what we needed for the trek to Oxford.

Long before we left on this trip, Laureen had found a tour of Oxford University that is done by Oxford students so she booked us two tickets to the 11:00 AM tour. The drive from Windsor to Oxford is about an hour, so we decided to leave close to 9:30 AM to give us enough time to get there and find parking so that we could go on our walking tour of the University. 

Back into the right hand drive vehicle. There is one other item I should note that differs from driving at home on the right side of the road and that has to do with your position in the vehicle. When driving at home, and sitting on the left side of the vehicle, over time you learn to compensate for not sitting in the centre of the automobile. However, un the UK - you are sitting on the RIGHT side of the vehicle. It is a constant battle against your engrained driving skills to drive as though you are sitting over top of the right wheel track of the road, rather than the left. I naturally want to line myself up with the left wheel track on the road, so I'm constantly crowding the left side. If all the rest of the items did not make it hard enough, now I have to remember this, all while still chanting softly to myself, "Stay left. Stay left. Stay left." 🚘

The drive to Oxford was good, with only a couple minor navigational issues. One wrong exit out of a round-about (did I mention that they go the opposite way that we do?), and once in Oxford we ended up on what appeared to be a pedestrian road. Sorry - tourist. Parking is also a bit of a challenge here as there is not much of it. It took us a bit to find a spot and we had to walk a couple of blocks to where we needed to meet our tour guide. It all worked out in the end.

Oxford is a busy place as there was a plethora of pedestrians and numerous tour groups seemingly swarming everywhere. We found our meeting point and were given a green wristband to wear for the duration. Our tour guide was Thomas and he was studying at the Balliol College within the University of Oxford. I took a short clip of him at the beginning of the tour (seems to be a slight technical issue with the video. I'll see if I can get it working later):

There is certainly much history to the places around here. Evidence of instruction at the University of Oxford can be traced back to 1096, however the date that is most often used as the date it was "Established", is 1231. It had something to do with the recognition of the Masters. Regardless, it is what is on all the T-shirts around here - so that must be the date.

The other item of note is that the University of Oxford is not a single institution. In fact there are about 39 different “constituent colleges” that make up the University of Oxford proper. Each constituent college has a “founder” (who’s name is blended into the colleges name) that provided the foundation and funding for that college. They all teach a full offering of courses, which means that they compete with each other for students.  There is also some kind of ranking for each of the colleges, and the competition to be ranked high is fierce. The highest ranking college is Merton. There is a published list of rankings here. 

It was also interesting to note that the method of learning, called “tutorials”, is small cohorts from one to three students paired with a professor. I guess in this way they can pass on their knowledge in a more personal way than the large lecture halls that I have been used to back home. There are also specific dates when a larger body of students come together for lectures, but these are noted as “optional”.  

I would have had to take notes to remember all of the things that were conveyed, but instead of a history lesson, I'll just share a series of pictures I took from walking around the area.

The bridge of sigh's similar to the one in Venice

Radcliffe Camera building (1700's)

one of the first circular libraries in the country

This door is somehow linked to C.S. Lewis who taught at Oxford.
The Lion can be seen in the carving.

This lamppost is said to be the inspiration for 

the lamppost that the children see after they

go through the back of the wardrobe in

the Chronicles of Narnia

After the tour ended, I ran to the car to pay for another stint of parking (they only gave us a couple hours at the pay booth), so we could go wander around a little on our own. We stopped for lunch and had an amazing Mexican Chicken baguette sandwich and a couple of smoothie drinks that were enjoyed in the plaza. I really like this part of European culture. Then off to find a University of Oxford shirt as a souvenir before we jumped back into the car and headed back to Windsor.

Still dealing with a bit of jet lag, we decided to stop in at our room and take a short rest before continuing the rest of our day. 

Dinner this evening was at Sebastian's Italian restaurant, which was just a short walk from our hotel. Fantastic Margherita Pizza and a Capri Salad to share. Had a near incident with the balsamic vinegar (no details - just know that one needs to be 'gentle' with the balsamic). A nice glass of  Nero d' Avola Italian red wine topped off the meal. Dessert was a trifecta of gelato flavours from Amorino Gelato which is just around the corner from Sebastian's. 

Back to the hotel for an early bedtime.  We checkout tomorrow and move to a hotel that is close to Heathrow for our early departure on Thursday for Nairobi, Kenya thru Frankfurt, Germany. Not exactly sure what the day will hold for tomorrow; we'll just wait and see.

G'night all.

Curt & Laureen