Busy Day in Oxford

I saw these signs in a covered market and it made me laugh. "Nothing" and "Next to Nothing" are cute names for stores, but not adequate descriptions of what we did today! My feet are sore from all the walking, but I've learned a lot today!


First we headed downtown to shop for cell phones we could use while we're here. When I say "downtown," I really mean it next time, because I discovered that the little shopping area we went to last night is really a suburb of Oxford called Summertown. This time we hit the truly old part of the city--with street names like "Broad Street" and "High Street."


Then after a lot of shopping around for the best pay as you go phone (Hint, Orange is the best deal we found!) we met the rest of our group at the gates of Trinity College for a walking tour. Trinity is one of the most famous colleges at Oxford. There are 38 Colleges in all, and as I learned today, each functions as its own university, but they all fall under the umbrella of Oxford University.

This is the original gatehouse of Trinity College. Each College has a chapel, a library, and a dining hall. When you're a student at Oxford you are required to live "In College." There are only single rooms, and each college is gated. Apparently a long time ago if you missed curfew you were locked out. I also learned a lot about the traditional gowns they wear at Oxford. (Think Harry Potter!) If you're an undergrad your gown only goes to your knees, if you're on scholarship it's slightly longer than your knees. The saying is, "The longer the gown, the more important the person."


We saw other Oxford sights on our tour, like Blackwell's the famous 7 floor bookstore,

The building where the Oxford University Press was founded,

The bridge of sighs, where you're supposed to make a wish, 

All Soul's College, 

 And then we moved on to our most important appointment so far. Induction to the Bodleian Library. The Library here is incredible. It is housed in 5 buildings on campus, but most of those buildings consist solely of reading rooms. The stacks are housed in various places--a large building in downtown Oxford, and, oddly enough, a salt mine in Cheshire. The Bodleian Library is NOT a lending library, but a reference library. You can't check books out, and if the book you want is in the Salt Mine it might take you 2 to 3 days to even get the book pulled out of the stacks. The catalogue system is very intense and all done online.


We had an introduction with the admissions officer of the Library. When I think admissions I think college acceptance, but she's in charge of admitting people to the Library! We had a brief history lesson and a quick lesson on how to request books from the stacks, and then we had to sign the Bodleian Oath. Not even that, we had to swear the Bodleian Oath out loud. And I quote: 

I hereby undertake not to remove from the Library, nor to mark, deface, or injure in any way, any volume, document or other object belonging to it or in its custody; not to bring into the Library, or kindle therein, any fire or flame, and not to smoke in the Library; and I promise to obey all rules of the Library.

So, after that bit of business was accomplished, we wandered around some more. Apparently the room in which we had our orientation was once where the nation's parliament was housed. So the chair that I sat on may or may not have been used by Charles I. (Don't worry, we totally had permission to sit there!)

The building on the right is the Radcliffe Camera--a largely undergrad series of reading rooms, and one of the most well-known buildings in Oxford. 

Tomorrow is a big day--we're heading out to Stonehenge. More to come!