Day 5: A Day of History

Today was an exciting day of traveling outside of London. First we visited Oxford University, England’s first school. The city of Oxford has 38 colleges in it and it still manages to be a very beautiful town, so I don’t know what Chadron’s problem is. Haha no, that is not true Chadron is great. But Oxford is just something different completely. Christ’s Church is the original university so we mostly toured that, which coincidently is the founding place of Alice in Wonderland, the place of many of the film shots from Harry Potter, and very near a curiously familiar lamppost and goat-man statue from where the Chronicles of Naria’s author studied. I regretted not bringing a notebook and pen because the tour guide said so much so fast that I know I didn’t get half of it all.

The cathedral at Christ's Church.

To explain with the Alice and Wonderland reference, the author Charles Lutwidge Dodson who went by the pen name Lewis Carroll, was a math teacher here. Alice Liddel was the Dean’s daughter at the college and grew up there. The guide explained how the teacher would tell Alice and her 6 siblings wild stories, which eventually became the book and they all were inspired by things seen in the college. For example, in the book Alice took a potion and her neck became very long and skinny, and in the dinning hall, the fireplace has posts in front with extremely long skinny necks. There were many stories of Alice as well. When she as older, she fell in love with one of the students at the college named Leopold I-forgot-the-last-name. But Leopold was from a royal family and they both knew that they could not marry each other because of their different classes. Instead, they moved on with their lives and named their first children after each other. Alice’s oldest son was named Leopold Reginald Hargreaves, and is also found in the college, however not in the fun ways of Alice’s stories. Leopold Hargreaves name is one the WWI memorial wall, along with his younger brother. Alice’s original love Leopold went on to have a daughter named Alice (Princess Alice) who died from hemophilia. It was an amazing story, and one of those that you shouldn’t just read on the internet- the inscribed names and carved busts make the story so much more real.

This is an old Tavern where in the 1500’s, an Oxford tragedy took place. Students here drinking beer decided it did not taste good enough and threw it back into the tavern man’s face. The tavern man went across the street to a church and rang the town bell to alert everyone that he needed help, and when the students heard it they ran down the street to Oxford College and rang their bell, to alert students that they needed help. Long story short, a few days of riots later there were 64 students dead. Because of this loss, the city of Oxford paid money to the college for hundreds of years (they stopped in the 1900’s) to pay homage and the Oxford mayor every year would march through the town to the University’s entrance and apologize on his knees.

Oxford’s staircase was Warner Brothers inspiration for Harry Potters moving staircase, and this steeples was used with computer animation to be the Hogwarts tower that Harry and Ron flew around with the flying car. The dinning hall below was also the inspiration for Hogwarts, but was not used in the actual filming because there were only three tables wide and Hogwarts needed four. There were so many tiny little stories like that it would be impossible to tell them all.

Oxford also has The Eagle and Child, which is a pub where J.R. R. Tolken and C.S. Lewis would meet weekly and discuss life and ideas over a pint. Oxford is a breathtaking town with century old churches and buildings on every street. It is amazing for an American to hear that the church they are standing was made in the 13^th century, or the entire town was started in 700’s, considering our entire country is less than 300 years old.

Following Oxford we bussed to Stratford, the birthplace of William Shakespeare. Here is where I will lose some fans…. I didn’t do the tour so I can’t say much. I honestly wanted to go and was excited for it, but when I heard it was 17 pounds (~$25) and only about a 20-minute walk-through tour, I decided not to and save my cash. I was disappointed but I knew I would want a longer time there to see everything and our group was on a schedule. I will try my hardest not to lose any more opportunities. I was able to enjoy some shops and try some authentic English cream tea. My confusion was that I assumed cream tea meant a creamy tea, it instead meant a pot of tea with a scone, jam, and clotted cream. It was very delicious and felt traditional. I also shared a sausage pastry with my roommate, and along with a wrap I ate in Oxford I discovered something that may insult some Englanders. Their food is bland.

I do not mean to insult anyone, the Chinese and African food I have had in London has been the best of my life. And the traditional England food is still very good. The difference is American flavor. The sausage pastry I had today would have been SOOO good with a little bit of gravy in it, or perhaps if the sausage was a little more greasy. I was a little disappointed when I realized I was craving gravy and grease, but hey, that’s the American way and I am not ashamed.

Anyway, our last stop on the travel was Warwick Castle. Windsor castle was a living castle, meaning it is still in use and has a lot of modern improvements. Warwick castle is almost more of a theme park/living history kind of thing, and it was a great time. My only regret is how little of time we had there, but like I said we had a schedule. I visited the actual gaol (jail) and it was cool. Made me think we should start using those methods for criminals and the system might actually get somewhere. Or at least we wouldn’t have reoffenders.

Saw this and thought of my High School buddies, David, Eli, Luke, and Barnes!

Begin the jokes!

I also saw the Birds of Prey show where they showed us an African eagle-owl, a Bald eagle, and a Steller's Sea eagle. Man it was cool to see them, and it made me miss my day’s at the zoo with a screech owl named Scout. She did not preform for me quite as well, but still a great time.

I finished this full day with fish and chips and a few pints at the London pub. I had a “grand ol’ time" today as all my new London friends would say. 

Cheers!