More on that later.
Hi everyone! Sorry to leave you hanging. My internet connection has finally been set up here in Oxford, and I have a LOT to catch you up on. There might actually be two posts today, because I simply don't have time to write everything down in one sitting.
Let's start with Friday night. I went to an early dinner with friends for my birthday/ pre-fast meal (found a new restaurant to frequent--two for one meals and desserts, and the food is really good). I had to run out of that to meet Peter (the friendly chap from Bristol synagogue who lives in Bath), who drove me to Kol Nidre services in Bristol. The service was long, and not fantastic, but I'm glad that I got a chance to go. I was also invited to two different Sukkot parties while I was there, and I was asked to lead services sometime (which I would normally love to do, but the service is so different, I don't even think that I could). I got home late, finished packing, and pretty much just went to bed. Not especially exciting.
Got up the next morning nice and early to head to Oxford. We piled onto the bus, and were happily driving along on our two hour journey, and suddenly stopped. Traffic had simply stopped moving. We wound up sitting on the bus for an hour, not moving. Everyone was pretty grumpy about it, and then we started singing Disney songs, which picked up the mood a bit.
We finally got to Oxford and began a frantic shuffle to get everyone into their rooms and try to get back on schedule. I was shown to my room, which is this absolutely ENORMOUS corner single in a dorm building on Logic Lane (which is simply fantastic), that has its own sink, and fridge, and electric tea kettle, and really nice furniture. I'm actually regretting not studying in Oxford-- this is really posh.
My building.
My room (well, half of it)-- see the sink in the corner?
My room, part two. It's huge!!
Afterwards, we met in a seminar room for a quick welcome to University College (which is where we are staying) by an eminent historian who is a professor here as well as a tutor for our programme. He gave us a very funny brief history of the college (it is the oldest of all of the Oxford Collges, technically...but don't say that to someone from Meryton or they'll pick a fight with you). He also told us about a few of Univ's famous alums-- including Percy Shelley, and Bill and Chelsea Clinton. He described Univ as having "a very long and generally unexciting history, with occasional bursts of genius, then lots more boring stuff." I think I like the way that this prof. teaches history.
Then we briefly toured the college-- saw the Shelley monument, our common room, the Great Hall (where we eat-- it looks like a mini Hogwarts dinning hall), the room where Bill Clinton lived when he was in grad school here, the chapel, the library, the bar, etc. And we were told the one rule that you must never, never break on any Oxford campus, or you will instantly be stuck by lightning-- DON'T STEP ON THE GRASS! (Ok, maybe you won't be struck by lightning, but you will face the wrath of an angry Head Porter, as well as the withering vibes of disapproval sent from beyond the grave by centuries of alumni. How else do you think they keep the grass so perfect?)
The central quad in Univ, leading into the Great Hall.
Another quad, with a statue of the college's noble founder, King Alfred.
More of the main quad.
The college chapel (the stained glass windows inside are beautiful). Only alums of the college have the right to marry here.
We have to go through all sorts of little gates, pathways, and staircases to get from one quad to another-- it's actually quite confusing, and tall people have to duck occasionally.
The Percy Shelly Monument (he wrote The Necessity of Atheism in 1810 or so, which actually got him kicked out of Univ. But then he got terribly famous and all that quite a while later, and the college felt badly, and gave him a monument.
After the college tour, we took a quick look around the city centre in order to get our bearings. We saw the major shopping streets, famous pubs, and a few of the other 39 colleges that make up Oxford. This is the myth that I referred to earlier-- there is no such place as Oxford University. Oxford is made up of 39 completely separate colleges, which have different specialties, different staff, and different campuses (all behind terribly imposing and intimidating high stone walls, designed to keep the townsfolk out and the gownsfolk safely cloistered away from the outside world). So if some pompous individual tells you that they studied at Oxford, you should ask them which college they attended-- see if they are legitimate or not.
After the tour, everyone was free to spend the rest of the day shopping, eating, and so on. I, however, decided that I would try to make it to concluding services for Yom Kippur at the Oxford Synagogue. Trouble was, I didn't know exactly where that was. So I wandered around for at least an hour, trying to find it (and of course I was looking for the wrong street name). Anyway, I eventually found it (good thing too, because all of that walking on an empty stomach was not treating me too well). I went to the Liberal service (kinda like Reform, but more reform than that...), which was stuffed into this little room in the back end of a really lovely, very modern, and clearly new building (the Orthodox service got the big room). The service was nice-- better than Bristol's-- but I was feeling a bit faint, so I was quite glad when it was over.
I left the synagogue in search of dinner, but as it turns out, there is really nowhere to get food to go on a Saturday night. I was quite sad. Then I found a cafe that was about to close (actually, it's supposedly the oldest cafe in England, which is kind of a neat thing), and bought a whole boatload of food. I took it back to my room and devoured it, just in time to make it to a showing of "Shadowlands" in our common room-- a really wonderful, but terribly sad film about the love story between C.S. Lewis and Joy Gresham. It gave us lots of perspective as to how Oxford looked and functioned 60 or so years ago, and it was really quite good.
Then I basically collapsed into bed. It was a ridiculously long day.
Part two will be on its way shortly!
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