By Dan
Saturday 26th of May 2018
What comes to your mind when you think of Oxford? Large halls of rich mahogany, draped in thick cashmere rugs with walls adorned with famous alumni and heavy-browed gentlemen staring down and catching you in their cross-hairs? Or perhaps vast libraries where hundreds of thousands books, some centuries old, make up the supporting foundations for the soaring roofs? Or young students hurrying to aforementioned halls, with glistening eyes catching light, moist with the call of ambition? Or vast swathes of lawns cut with a pair of scissors by Simon the scowling groundskeeper, an ex-student who attempted to recreate the burning of the martyrs with a teacher's favourite pair of peacocks and because he lacked a billionaire for a father, which is necessary to avoid any punishment in life, was subsequently expelled. But was (oddly) given a job as a groundskeeper as part continuing punishment and part continuing warning to any future would-be historically-passionate firebugs.
Yes, all of these things exist in this historical town, and more. We took the train an hour north of London to discover some of them for ourselves. We only had a day, so we had everything planned to the teeth. And by teeth I mean the teeth of the giant tyrannosaurus rex in the natural history museum, which is a must for anyone who's going to Oxford. While you're there, make sure you head into the back room, called the Pitt River Museum, where you'll find something that resembles the collection of a colonialist hoarder. Seriously, everything from shrunken heads to full-bodied jackets made from the lining of seal stomachs have been traded/stolen and stored in this vast room. It is simultaneously horrifying and amazing.
Make sure you book a walking tour of the town and colleges. Avoid the free tours and pay for a professional Oxford historian to take you around. This has two advantages, the first being that the locals of Oxford know who's who in terms of tour guides and will favour the quieter paid-for groups over the free fifty strong tour groups. The second advantage is that you'll be getting accurate information. Our guide, Silvia, told us about some of the wild facts she'd heard while on tour: One gentleman even went so far as to tell his unsuspecting group that there were 50 colleges in Oxford, when there are only 38. The nerve of some people is astounding.
After the tour we walked around in the sun and just enjoyed watching the vast groups of students and people walking, cycling and grazing. We imagined the students contemplating Plato and the tourist contemplating the best filter for their pic of the Bodleian Library or the Radcliffe Camera. We ate lunch at the the Alpha Bar, a hole in the wall sandwich bar that serves awesome salads for poor students and travellers alike.
Some other things worth doing while you're there are visiting the Museum of the History of Science, where you can see the bed pans that held the cultured mould that led to the discovery of penicillin. I'm not being facetious here, that shit is cool. Go check out Blackwell's bookshop, it's huge. And then check out the Weston Library for the best toilet-break in Oxford. Also visit the Thames and the Botanic Gardens, we ran out of time so we'll be going back for these things and of course to pretend we're Hogwarts students – they filmed parts of Harry Potter here, so it's not hard to do.
By now your day is probably coming to an end, so slowly meander back to the station, fight with the thousand other tourists for a seat on the train (weirdly the train's cheaper than the bus), make friends with a crying toddler and go home wishing you went to Oxford instead of the University of Technology Sydney.
