Chichester International
Oxford
In the half-term week my boyfriend and I went to a few cities in England, one of them was Oxford. This city is located North-West of London. The city is mostly famous for the legendary people who have studied over there, like Bill Clinton.
We arrived in this famous city in the afternoon. First we went to our Airbnb in the outskirts of the city, which was a quiet house near a bus station. After dropping our stuff we wanted to go immediately to the city centre, because it looked really nice when we drove through it. We walked in the main streets of Oxford and saw a lot of universities, shops and restaurants. There was also a big museum, but that was closed. We saw an extremely busy restaurant, which was renowned as the best restaurant in Oxford. Although that makes it sound very expensive, it was surprisingly cheap. It was more like a pizzeria with only students, and of course beer.
The next day we went back to the city centre. We wanted to go into some Universities, but in front of each college there was a sign saying visitors were not allowed. We were a little bit disappointed about this, as we thought we could come and see them and especially the lectures halls and dining halls. So we went to the tourist office to see what it was possible to see. We chose to go on an excursion where we got information about a lot of universities and where we could actually tour one.
Our tour guide knew a lot about this city and told us; he told us that there were around 39 colleges. They are separate from each other, so they are not faculties, but all together they have the name ‘the University of Oxford’. Students have lectures together with other colleges in the city but they also have private lessons. The private lessons include tutorials with four different teachers alone, mostly teachers from your college. The student gets homework, for example to read a book by next week and to write an essay about it. The next week you talk about this essay with your teacher. However, if you want to specialise in a subject in which the school does not have a professor, then you can have tutorials with another professor from another college.
The tourist office guide showed us a few Universities and told us which famous people studied there. Furthermore, we went into two Universities. In one university we only saw the courtyard and in the other university we could go in and see the chapel, the gardens and the courtyard. In both courtyards the grass is perfectly mown. The chapel was also really nice. It was small but big enough and there were beautiful mosaic windows. The guide told us that there were 3 gardens; one for the students, one for the teachers and one for the principal who lives at the University. We saw the teachers’ garden.
In addition, the guide also told us that there were 114 libraries in Oxford. We couldn’t go in any of them because visitors were not allowed in. The only library we could visit was the public library but we could have a look around the most famous library in Oxford, which is a round building. There are so many books, that they are also kept underground. In the afternoon, when it gets dark, this library has a special effect, because all the lights are on in this building and you can see the light coming out every window.
In one other library we could see the hall. This hall was the same as the sickroom in Harry Potter. It was really funny to see, because I have seen all these movies. In the library upstairs the forbidden library in Harry Potter was filmed, unfortunately we didn’t see that.
The guide showed us also the bridge of Sighs. When people graduate in Oxford they always take pictures under it. The bridge connects two parts of Hertford College. Near to this bridge is a pub, which is the oldest pub in Oxford and a president of a country (I don’t know which country) still has a drinking record there. So after the tour we went to this pub. We did not try to break the record, but we had a beer.
After drinking a beer we went to the big church in the centre of the city. There you can climb a tower and you can see a nice view over the whole city. Because we were there in the afternoon, we saw the sunset over the universities and the famous library. After seeing this we wanted to see one other university because we wanted to see the dining room. That is why we bought a ticket and saw the courtyard, the chapel and the dining room. The dining room was a big room with long tables that were covered with plates, glasses and cutlery. It was a bit like Harry Potter, but not that big.
Finally, at the end of the day we ate in another pub. The guide from our tour told us about this pub. He said that you can get really nice food here in big portions. That was also the reason why most students came to eat there. The pub is divided in different rooms. Every room looks different and that makes it very special and cosy.
In the end we had a few nice days in Oxford and I will recommend anybody to go to this beautiful city.
Yvette Schurink