On Wednesday, we went on a trip to Oxford for most of the day. It was a lot of fun and the tour guides were great. Basically what happens is they go over some historical points on the bus ride there and then once you arrive they take you a bit around the city. I was not able to write that night so I do not remember much but I can tell you what I remember. I know now that Oxford is kind of set up like Cornell. There are many different schools, so you have to apply to each individual school, and so they make up the university as a whole and it is governed by a central body. Our tour guide used the United States to describe it, where each individual school is like a state and has a state government and then Oxford University itself is like the federal government. I also learned about several people who went to school there, such as Bill Clinton and Lewis Carroll. It is really cool because they have a shop that is dedicated to Alice and wonderland! Anyway after the tour, we were given about 2 1/2 hours to explore which, apart from the rain, was a lot of fun. I ate my first pasty, which is kind of like a hot pocket full of potatoes and whatever else you like. It is delicious. I also got my local cell phone while we went around.
One quick side note on that...you can buy a really cheap cell phone at some of the stores, mine was like 8 pounds, and there are some really good plans suited for what you want. I have a pay as you go and I put 20 pounds on mine and my plan comes with free rewards when you put minutes on so I got 200 free international minutes. My advice is to just ask and they will direct you to the best company.
Anyway....so we went shopping, ate lunch, saw the sights, and saw ducks. The last bit was exciting for me because I really love ducks so. I took many pictures and in the caption I will try to put what place it is, but if the place is wrong I apologize.
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| The Front of the Ice Rink |
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| The Ice Rinks tower structure |
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| This tower would ring every quarter hour |
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| Part of the bell chimers |
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| Some of the old architecture buildings |
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| Decorative work on one of the buildings |
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| The university chuch of St. Mary |
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| Another view of St. Mary |
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| St. Mary again |
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| A street sign |
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| Church of St. Mary |
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| St. Mary's |
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| Radcliffe Camera |
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| One of the buildings in Radcliff Square |
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| Radcliff Square |
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| Radcliff Square |
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| The entrance to the building above |
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| This picture and four below it were taken in a square that had entrances to several departments |
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| I forget the building but I know it had the four muses standing above it |
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| One of the muses |
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| Where the Museum of Oxford used to be |
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| One of a collection of heads with different beards |
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| Another one of the stone bearded men |
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| The original Oxfam I believe |
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| The sign for the Christ Church War Memorial Garden...If you could not tell :) |
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| War Memorial Garden |
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| Christ Church |
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| Christ Church |
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| Some of the scenery |
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| More of the Garden |
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| The church's grounds |
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| Christ Church I believe |
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| British Ducks :) |
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| Some lovely fall colors |
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| I am not sure what bird this is actually... |
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| A coat of arms somewhere that I liked |
