OXFORD UNIVERSITY

I always wanted to read the Harry Potter series.  Really I did.  Harry was absolutely everywhere for a good number of years and I knew nothing about him.  I picked up that he went to wizard school and I'm sure he was a very good wizard...in all senses of the word.  For one thing, his glasses were great (I'm still trying to find some just like his); and, I did watch a short segment of one of his movies in which he showed a tremendous understanding of flight dynamics as they apply to a broomstick.  At least, I think it was a broomstick.  Now, we're heading to Oxford, which provided actual shooting locations for the films as well as overarching atmosphere,  and I don't know what  to look for.  Once again I have procrastinated my way into complete ignorance.

Kevin is discussing the British education system as we leave London and enter the Chalk Hills.  I sense that it's a complicated system as I'm madly scribbling notes and trying to keep up.  England is a class-based society, per Kevin, and I think he is suggesting that English schools, much like our own here in the US, may provide a better education to a middle or upper class neighborhood than to a lower class area. I'm disappointed about that--I had expected better, but I think I understood it right. Admissions become more complicated at the University level--where public schools are actually private.  I've stopped writing.  I'm missing too much scenery.

It is raining cats and dogs when we arrive in Oxford with a bit of thunder thrown in now and then. My camera is safely packed away and my umbrella is providing a bit of protection, but not much.  I am cold and wet.  But so is everyone else, so I decide to put on my brave face and be a big girl.

Because of the weather, Kevin is forced to scrap some of our plans, but we do manage a bit of a walk-around before climbing the stairs to the Great Hall of Christchurch College.  The very steps Harry Potter used in one or another of his movies.

A grand banquet will be held at the Great Hall this evening and tables are set accordingly.  I'm counting at least four wine glasses at each place, and wishing I'd been invited.  The Hall is huge, poorly lit, and impossible for me to photograph, but it serves as the model for Hogwarts Hall.

Proof that we are indeed here--although I see they spell Christ Church as two words, where much of my research combines it into one.  I really wanted to pick up the program and read it, but I knew not to.  And, perhaps it's just as well we weren't invited, as that many forks have a tendency to make me just the slightest bit nervous.

Our Christ Church guide really shouldn't have let us into the Great Hall since it was set for the evening festivity, but she has some seniority and Road Scholars are trusted not to steal delicate crystal and highly-polished silver from the tables.  And, she and Kevin appear to be on a first-name basis.

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After our tour, we enjoyed a late lunch in a nearby nicely trendy restaurant, and then visited the Ashmolean Museum which turned out to be really interesting from top to bottom.  The exhibits there are so diverse, everyone can find a favorite.  The museum dates to the 1670s when Elias Ashmole gave Oxford University a "Cabinet of Curiosities".  That tale involves much (and detailed) intrigue, but was the beginning that led to the historic building erected in the 1840s that has become tied to Oxford.  Besides more exhibits than could be seen in a day (pick and choose as you go), the Gift Shop rates five stars.