I’ve been in Oxford for about two days now, and I’m still constantly astounded by the beauty of the university and the city. Our train from Wales came in around 4 on Saturday, and the streets were flooded with tourists. It was a shock seeing it so busy, since none of us really thought it would be that way. But now that we’ve spent a lot of time today and yesterday in the city, we’ve gotten a good idea of how everything works.
8 a.m. Breakfast in the Great Hall
Yes, it’s that Great Hall. The Great Hall in the Harry Potter movies is a CGI rendering of the Great Hall in Christ Church. When we walked in yesterday morning for breakfast, we all had to pause at the sheer grandness of the room. That’s where we’re eating breakfast and dinner for the majority of the days these next few weeks. Breakfast is pretty standard (by this I mean standard British breakfast, not American…) – bacon (what we call ham), sausage, eggs (poached or fried), hash browns (always triangular for some reason), toast or croissants, and cereal or porridge.
(Fun fact: they actually filmed a few HP scenes on the steps that lead up to the Great Hall, most notably when first years are being sorted in the Sorcerer’s Stone.)
9 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. Classes
I only have classes on Tuesday and Thursday (and I have a break in between), so I don’t spend a lot of time in class. Usually between classes we’ll either sit in our rooms, the common room, or a cafe and read or do homework. This morning we just wandered around town for a little to get our bearings.
1:30 p.m. – 6 p.m. Free Time
We have all afternoon free (and I have pretty much all day free on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) to do whatever we want. We’ve mostly spent our free time walking around, ether to find a specific store or cafe, or just looking at things.
6:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. Dinner in the Great Hall
Dinner is super fancy when we eat in the Great Hall (Monday through Wednesday), and we have to dress up. Our meals are served to us in courses, and it’s a lot of fun! Yesterday instead of dinner in the Great Hall, we had dinner with the Dean of Christ Church. After dinner, he showed us around the Deanery (that’s what they call his apartment/mansion – it has 12 bedrooms!), which is where much of Alice in Wonderland was inspired. (Alice was the daughter of the Dean at the time.)
8:00 p.m. – bedtime. Free Time
We don’t usually have anything scheduled at night, and most stores are closed by the time we’re done with dinner, so we usually just hang out in someone’s room or go to a pub. Pubs here aren’t really what you think of pubs like in America – they’re really casual, and they usually have great food, and just have a really nice atmosphere.
Overall, living in Christ Church is basically a dream. We keep joking that we feel like princesses, since the buildings are really castle-like. We spend most of our time chatting or drinking tea and reading. I don’t think there’s anything better than that!
