Day Four: More Oxford

We began our day with “breakfast in hall” (feeling very much like Harry Potter, but with more coffee…), then the students headed off to St. Peter’s College with David for a lecture, while I began the exciting task of doing some laundry! Since I had to walk through Oriel College to get to the laundry room, and the College is full of blooming flowers and espaliered trees, the task was actually almost enjoyable. Once I had a pile of clean clothes (and several hours of much needed Colgate work done as well…), I convinced the kids to finally get dressed and leave the flat with me. We walked across the Bodlein Library complex and down Parks Road, pausing on the way to admire the Rhodes House and take the classic American-kids-in-a-British-phone-booth photo, which we had not yet done. We stopped at the excellent Oxford University Museum of Natural History, which houses the university’s collection of zoological, entomological and geological specimens, including several dinosaur skeletons, a procession of mammal skeletons, gems, meteorites, and a head and foot of a Dodo, which are apparently the most complete Dodo remains anywhere in the world. Some of Darwin’s specimens are here, and prove to be quite popular, but Emma’s favorite exhibit by far was Mandy the Shetland Pony, which is a stuffed pony that actually has a “Please Touch” sign displayed in front of it (this must be a first for a museum of “entomological specimens”).

Behind the University Museum is the equally excellent Pitt Rivers Museum (also free!) of “archaeology and evolutionary anthropology.” This is basically a fancy way of saying the museum has just a little bit of everything imaginable from every culture on every continent in every era. We saw costumes from Tahiti collected from Captain Cook, African pottery, Inuit parkas, warrior helmets made from pufferfish, Melanesian masks, Chinese fishing hooks, Russian toys, Native American moccasins, locks and keys from the Kingdom of Benin, Canadian ice hockey skates, and Japanese drums. The entire third floor was devoted to weaponry through the ages from each continent, much to John’s great pleasure, and both kids thoroughly enjoyed the “mouse trail” for kids that the museum put together: after picking up “maps” at the front, they would read a clue about the location of a small wooden mouse, then find the right display case and use wind-up searchlights to look for the mouse, “Where’s Waldo”-style, somewhere in the displays.

By the time we explored both museums, David’s lecture was done, so he met us there, and we walked to Wadham College, where he attended classes during his junior year at Oxford. We took a few photos as he reminisced, then walked around the corner to the Alternative Tuck Shop where he used to stop in for ham and cheese toasties (which, according to David, also always contained cucumber and a thick layer of butter!) after his tutorial. We also did a bit of shopping, and outfitted David with all kinds of Wadham College gear for an early birthday present. We dropped off our purchases, and met most of the students at Oriel College for the short walk to Magdalen Bridge, where we would start our afternoon activity of punting on the River Cherwell (which leads to

the Thames…or the “Isis” as it is called here). Punting involves a long, low wooden boat and a long pole, and the punter stands on the end (apparently, the end on which you choose to stand is dictated by whether you are an Oxford or a Cambridge man...) and pushes against the shallow riverbed to propel the boat down the river. At least, that's the idea. The reality is that the pole often gets stuck, and the boat careens from one side of the river to the other, slowly drifting under various bridges while a gaggle of spectators (some of which are sober, and others which are not) stand atop the bridge and heckle the punter and the punter's already-worried passengers. Our group took four "punts," and we split up into those that might not mind getting wet (John was in this group, which ended up being all the male students...) and those that were carrying relatively expensive electronic equipment in their relatively new purse, and would prefer not to get wet (that's me!). David ended up punting our boat, also populated by Kristen and See Hee. The look of trepidation on Kristen's face in the photo below as David guides us under a bridge pretty much sums up the experience!

Once we were on dry land, the students split off from us and headed to a pub. We hit a "sweets" shop for the kids, then went back to our flat for some itinerary-planning for tomorrow. Once the kids got hungry enough, we left again for dinner, and David found a fantastic Indian place that caters to vegetarians. The food was really quite good, and though we all love Indian food, the kids were especially into this one. Emma ended up with a lentil dish and I got a pumpkin saag, and we both ate pretty much every bite, and John got a chicken shish wrapped in a thin egg omelette. I'm not quite sure that's what I ordered for him, but it turned out to be a happy mistake because he kept prodding me to ask the waiter for the recipe! The waiter was quite nice, and asked us what "part we were from." We said New York, and he said that his brother used to live in New York. We explained that we weren't from the city, but were from upstate New York, and he said, "My brother doesn't live in the city either. He's from another part...New Jersey, maybe?" We just nodded and smiled, too polite to point out that New Jersey is actually a whole different state! Then he showed us a photo of Bill Clinton visiting the restaurant a few years ago (when he was much thinner!) that they had framed on the wall. I'm assuming that's probably the only framed photo of an American president anywhere on the walls in Oxford!

We took a long, slow walk through the streets of Oxford as the sun went down, and though it's spring break for the Oxford students, the streets were still quite busy. We talked about what a great time we all had in Oxford, and how we all wished (even if just a bit) that we could stay for one more day instead of moving on to London! Maybe we will have to stop here again on our way back north!