Oxford- Sunday, July 28, 2013

Last night, we were a little shocked that our room in Oxford only had a double bed and a couch.  We figured that the couch opened into another double, but it did not.  When it was bedtime, we tried several combinations with different people trying the floor, until Scott finally noticed that the fourth bed pulled out from underneath the couch, like a trundle bed.  It was still hard, but the night was a lot easier with that.  Maybe we need to learn to complain more-- or at least ask questions.

On July 4, 1862, Charles Dodgson took three girls out on a boatride and told them a story that he made up along the way.  He would later be world famous as Lewis Carroll, and one of the girls was Alice Liddell, the daughter of the dean of Christ College at Oxford.  Early in the planning for this trip, Scott got it into his head that he too wanted to go for a boatride from Oxford, have a picnic along the way, and read "Alice's Adventures Under Ground" to his daughters.  We found a boat rental place by Magdalen College (which we later learned is pronounced "Maudlin").   They had punting boats available, which are pushed with long poles like gondolas, but we chose a rowboat, partly because Lewis Carroll was supposed to have been rowing, and partly because Julie thought it would be easier, like her kayak.  Julie volunteered to row.  Scott and Anna sat in the stern.  Poor Emma sat in the bow and ended up getting plunged into a bush or two as we circled a small island.  We were on the Cherwell River, which is smaller than the nearby Thames that Carroll used, but it was a nice stretch.  Julie had a little more trouble controlling the boat than she thought, but was getting better when our hour was done.  The girls watched ducks scurry out of the way.  The trip wasn't quite tranquil enough to read much of "Alice," but Scott did manage to read a line or two for the camera to say we've done it.

Julie had bought some things for a picnic lunch, but we didn't get it out while we were on the boat.  Instead, we took it to the Botanic Garden that we had passed while we were on the river.  It was an idyllic little place for the picnic.  We strolled around the garden a bit afterwards and the girls fed their bread crusts to the ducks.  It certainly did suggest that day when Wonderland was first told, even if it wasn't exactly the same.

The idyllic morning was followed by an afternoon filled with crowds and crowds of people.  We expected Oxford to be a quiet little college town, but it seemed to be drawing massive amounts of tourists.  When we stopped for a drink break, Scott asked the girl if this was a typical Sunday.  She said, "No, it was pretty dead.  Usually there's a lot more people."  We weren't sure how to take that.

We pushed through the crowds to see a bit of High Street and the architecture that surrounds it.  We found a Visitors' Centre, which was on a street where some kind of international festival was being held.   We found "The Old Sheep Shop," which specializes in Alice in Wonderland merchandise.  This particular shop was supposed to be the place where the real life Alice Liddell bought candy from a shopkeeper that bleated like a sheep.  If you look at "Through the Looking Glass," you will find the chapter where the White Queen turns into a sheep and Alice finds herself in shop with it.  The shop windows in the illustration are supposed to be based on the shop windows here.  Unfortunately, it was packed with tourists, and the clerks quickly yelled at anyone who took out a camera.

From there, we went to tour Christ Church College, which is the part of Oxford where Lewis Carroll taught.  Our goal was to see the Great Hall because it was the inspiration for the similar Great Hall at Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films, and the Great Hall scenes in the first one were apparently filmed here.  Unfortunately, the college was only open for tours for two and half hours this afternoon.  We arrived there at 2:00, when it was supposed to open, but so did thousands of other people.  Many of them were bus tours, and most of these seemed to be Asian student groups.  The line was already massive when we arrived.  We decided to wait, and spent maybe 45 minutes in line.  Unfortunately, once we got inside, the whole line from the outside had merely moved it the Tom Quad, and we had to wait there again for long time just to get into the Great Hall.  (We wondered if the tour operators had factored in this enormous wait time.  Their presence there certainly took away from the experience for us.)

The Great Hall is actually used as the dining hall for students at Christ Church College today, and place settings were set around the table for dinner.  The walls are lined with portraits of famous people from the college.  As we entered the large room, Scott asked one of the docents if the picture over the door of Henry George Liddell was Alice's father.  She seemed surprised at a non-Harry Potter question.  After we had made our circuit around the long room, she specifically pointed out the Lewis Carroll portrait on the wall and asked Scott if he had noticed the stained glass window that featured Carroll, Alice, and his characters.  The three girls had already moved out of the room, but Scott was able to go back to see the window and take pictures.

The unexpected crowds of people also cost us money.  We had already put money in the machine twice to pay for parking, but this last time took us way longer than we expected.  When we got back to the car on Longwall Street, there was a parking ticket on the window.  The fine was for 50 pounds, but it can be cut by 50% if we pay it within 14 days.  (We had already put 8 pounds into the machine for the slip of paper to put in our window for 4 hours total.  If we'd known it was going to cost us 25 pounds for the day, would we have just parked illegally to start with?  Probably not.)

We were really tired of the crowds.  While we were waiting to get into Christ Church, Julie had looked through a guide book and noted the Uffington White Horse was nearby.  It's one of the hillside drawings made by digging deep trenches and filling them with white chalk.  This particular figure is said to be 3,000 years old.  We decided to go there and were happy that we did.  We got back on the winding little country roads to get there, which are tricky to drive on because of the narrowness and the tall hedges.  The horse itself is hard to see from the ground, but not impossible.  We walked up to it, as close as you were allowed to go, and were even looking at it from above.  Climbing further up the hill, we came to Uffington Castle, the outline of an Iron Age fort dating back to several hundred years BC.  We were enjoying the stroll on the hill, but we had to hurry back to the parking lot because we could see the rain storms rolling in.  It started raining just as we arrived at the car, but we all agreed it was a nice stop.

There was one final stop to make in Oxford if it was possible.  JRR Tolkein and CS Lewis used to meet with their literary club, The Inklings, at a pub called The Eagle and Child.  Imagine the place where these two greats would share chapters of The Lord Of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia over a couple of pints.  It a cozy little place with dark wood and pictures of Tolkein and Lewis on the walls. Scott wanted to have a quick pint there, if he could.  It ended up being a very quick pint because Anna and Emma were not allowed in after 7:00 PM.  Just to make sure that we had enough time in the car park, Julie actually paid  enough to cover us until tomorrow morning.  On our way out of the parking lot, Julie handed the ticket to two guys who were waiting and said, "That's money that Oxford won't be getting!"

We had some toilet trouble in the room we were in last night.  This evening we've been moved to a different room.  It's set up similarly, but has a bed instead of a couch and the trundle bed underneath is even more comfortable.  It looks like taking problems to the front desk can pay off.