Brag: It only took me a day to get through Oxford

We took our trip to Oxford on Febuary 20th. In case your datically challenged, that's a really long time ago. Needless to say, I don't remember much. While doing a little brush up research I found this quote that I thought I would share with you.

A lot of girls annoy me who go to university - one girl told me she was going to Oxford because it was something to do between leaving school and getting married. And I've got to pay for that being an income tax payer.
-Jeffrey Bernard (obscure British journalist)

It annoyed me to listen to one of our tour guides complain about her daughters Oxford tuition rate rising to 3500ish pounds when DePaul cost 10 times that.



Oxford is not like a traditional University in the States. It is made up of 38 different colleges (one of them seen above) and students apply to the individual college. There is a lot disagreement over which college is the oldest but Univestiy College is the forerunners which claims to be established in 1249. The newest college, Kellogg College, was established in 1990.



Here is the spot were three people were burned at the stake for heresy. I don't really want to paraphrase the wiki page so you can read about it here. The lingerie store was built later.



If you know what Oxfam is this picture will impress you. If you are like me and had no idea that they were a famous charity organization that was started in Oxford at this very location, then you will probably be unaffected and slightly mad that you had to read through this blurb.



No idea what Steampunk was but it ended soon after I left. The museum behind the sign was pretty neat. It contained a bunch on astrological tools that had been collected over the past few hundred years by the University.



Blackwell's is the biggest Oxford bookstore were most students get there books. I used its facilities and was not very impressed (by the facilities not the store).



These busts of famous philosophers were all around one of the colleges. This is the one of weirder looking ones.



This bridge connecting two college building was styled after the bridges in Venice. Having been to Venice since taking this picture, I can say that is pretty accurate.



We also visted the Oxford market which was pretty cool. There were a bunch of butcher shops with various meats hanging in the window.



Here is a window display form a toy shop in the market. They obviously remember the American revolution differently over here.



Does this staircase look familiar to you?



How bout this door?





Or this [Great] hall.

Perhaps imagine Daniel Ratcliff running around in a wizard hat. Oxford aka Hogwarts was one of the major fliming locations for the Harry Potter movies.

The answers from the quiz above were staircase to the Great Hall, Infirmary and the Great Hall which definitely looks a lot larger in the movies. The ceiling is also much different.





At the end of our visit we walked through a central courtyard (quad) of one of the colleges. This guy made sure only students were allowed to walk on the grass.



Oxford was a decent trip. A lot of the history was really interesting but on of my favorite parts was seeing this little guy in the gift shop. Yes that's an actual college and no, their mascot is not the bears.