We woke up to a cloudy day and had already planned on spending the morning hanging out and enjoying our time. Dick worked on photos. Patti read a murder mystery and we really enjoyed some quiet time. Pacing ourselves is important on these long journeys.
Patti found us another walking tour to go on through similar areas as yesterday, with a little bit of a different focus.
We grabbed some sandwiches for lunch and while we were eating on a bench, had a delightful conversation with a grandmother who had taken several buses from Liverpool that day to be at her grandson’s middle school graduation. He was the “head boy” and that meant he got to give the speech at the ceremony.
We were able to spend a little time visiting University College. This was the school that our brother-in-law,Nigel Scrivens, attended a number of years back. It was fun to imagine him this amazing place. We also enjoyed thinking about other famous people who had gone to school in Oxford.
And we also slipped into the History of Science Museum, where we got to see the chalkboard that Einstein used in a lecture about his theory of relativity. He gave a brilliant lecture, and then a student was instructed to erase the chalkboard. The student looked at it and thought it was amazing and instead of erasing it, grabbed the chalkboard and ran down the street carrying it with the writing still on it, not erased. Eventually, he got his way and the blackboard is now in the museum. Very fun to see.
Our second walking tour of Oxford was led by Matthew who had a number of years ago graduated from Oxford with his Masters in Psychology. He had a group of nearly 50 tour members that he needed to keep track of. The tour was a little less personal, but we also got to hear some additional good stories.
On this tour, we had a chance to get inside a few more of the iconic colleges and chapels. One of the largest bookstores in the country Blackwells was also there which is interesting to see.
We were interested in hearing that these colleges (all of which are overall part of Oxford University) were places where the students lived, studied and received tutoring. But the actual lectures all happened outside of their college.
We got to see the Bridge of Sighs, which is copied after a similar bridge in Venice. This is a famous landmark , not the least of which is it led to the oldest pub in the city, Turf Tavern. Many famous people have drank at that pub, including this was famously where Bill Clinton when smoked marijuana well he was a student at , but later claimed that he did not inhale.
At the end of the tour, we decided to follow our Airbnb host’s advice and walk another half mile down to the Oxford Natural History Museum. This museum had an amazing collection of both skeletons and taxidermied animals of all sorts. Have you ever seen a giraffe skeleton? How do you spell PALLET
But, what we were really going towards was an additional museum in connection called the Pitt River Museum. This museum was described as having a collection such as the things that Indiana Jones went after in the movies. It was a rather overwhelming museum filled with glass cases with all kinds of artifacts from around the world.
What was particularly interesting though wasn’t the artifacts, but some of the newer commentary that the curators put out talking about the dilemmas of having such a collection that was based on colonialism and gathering items from people that were termed “less civilized or barbarians”. The museum is in a very deep process right now trying to go through their collection both in returning items such as human remains to appropriate people, as well as look at the bias in the interpretation. Fascinating.
Then, back to our flat for a little rest. And for the evening, we were off to have dinner with a Servas day host, Tony.
Rain was starting to fall steadily. And with a little bit of confusion that got sorted out quickly, we met Tony at quite a wonderful authentic Italian restaurant. There we spent the next several hours, discussing travel, politics, each other’s work, and the state of the world. Tony has a legal background and has worked as a attorney and judge in immigration, as well as mental health issues. There was a lot of good discussion as well as some excellent Italian food. And we walked back in the pouring rain to our flat.
Our time in Oxford was coming to an end.
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