Being Harry Potter

Mar. 5th, 2009 at 12:27 am

I am not going to remember many of the names of the places I was at today, but this day was a lovely long one dedicated to visiting Carrie.

She lives in the sketchy part of Oxford, which is still ADORABLE. I got to meet her flatmates- very fun girls, I must say- after she picked me up at the bus station, and then we started wandering. We walked along Martin's field, which is very pretty, albeit a bit muddy (no huge deal, we had fun jumping over puddles), and generally enjoying the arbitrarily sunny day (it was supposed to pour all day; no complaints here that it worked out to the contrary!) Then we started to play a game called "let's see which colleges we can get into!" which was really fun. When I am more awake I will name all of them.

The first quad we went into was where they based some major scenes from the Golden Compass movie out of- Christ Church. We also went into the dining hall that they based the Harry Potter Great Hall off of, which was so cool. Carrie is going to try to eat there one of these days. We also walked down an outdoor corridor that was most definitely used in the movies, and Carrie told me about how one of her friends has to wear a huge black cloak for certain formal occasions, and he lets her wear it and flap around in it a bit before he heads out. I want to be in Christ Church and wear a black cloak- talk about feeling so Harry Potter!

We went into St Mary's after that, and paid a couple quid to go up a staircase... and then up this really narrow twisty one. Halfway up, two people were coming down, and there was no room to pass; since we didn't want to go down and start again, we decided to stand in the window nooks while the other two went the rest of the way down. It was inventive, but I think the other two thought it a bit odd. The view from the top of the tower was really cool, and Carrie pointed out the library where she usually does work (which we can't go in since I'm not a student) and some of the other colleges, along with random trivia about things in their courtyards we could see.

As we walked along some more, she told me a story she had been told about a certain area that supposedly inspired CS Lewis; there was a black lamppost in the walkway, and a bit further down from it, a doorway that had what looked eerily like one would imagine Mr Tumnus to appear, and a door with a tree that has a face and ears ("Here, even the trees have ears!"). She doesn't know if that truly did inspire him, but it was still cool.

We walked through the courtyard of the Bodelian library- that's the big deal one, where when you go in, you have to have everything in a clear bag, and you're not allowed pens, and you have to swear not to be wet when you go in, or to take anything from it. We passed under the Oxford Bridge of Sighs (inspired from Venice), and then went along to Waterfords, which has the most miles of shelving in a bookshop. It was epic, I almost got lost in there and loved it. We passed Trinity college but couldn't go in, and went down to the Eagle and Child, where the Inklings would often meet and hang out.

After buying milkshakes (I got Cadbury Caramel, and it was SO GOOD) and Ben's Cookies at the covered market, and inquiring about where the fishmonger's crabs were imported from (apparently Denmark- Carrie had been guessing Maryland or Alaska), we found ourselves at Keble College. It was a strange mix of gothic structure but very Byzantine decoration, which was interesting.

I forgot the name of the pub we ate at (I usually write that stuff down!) , but lunch was yummy and at a very cute sprawling pub, and we got in a good talk. From there, we went to Carrie's college- Mansfield- and she set me up in the library while she went to meet with her tutor. Classes there sound so cool- they're on a trimester system, and you have a primary course that you meet one-on-one with a tutor for once a week, and a secondary, also one-on-one, that meets every other week, and you get to choose a topic, and they'll find you a tutor, and then you work with the tutor to decide what you want to study, and they'll make reading suggestions and things like that. She says it's a lot of work, but very interesting and worth it.

After we left her adorable library, we went and got afternoon tea, and watched two little British boys run around playing a game that, when asked, they didn't know what it was either. We tried to go shopping, but the one store we went into was adorable and pricey, and then everything else closed, so we went back to her room and watched an episode of the American Office and then one of the British ones, and had fun comparing the two. Then she saw me off and I slept my way back to Mile End!