Ah, yes. Oxford.

Right. So, what is Oxford like? Well, it’s a college town. There are mimes who paint themselves silver from head to toe and perform on street corners. There are tourists buying overpriced pink hoodies with varsity lettering emblazoned across the chest. There are teenagers with mohawks wandering the streets at a relatively late hour. There are cute stationery stores. There’s a Gap.

But, it’s also a college town that is nearly a millennium old. We eat our meals in a dining hall that was built in 1427. And looks like it. Everything has spires and turrets and gargoyles. A lot of famous people spent time at one of Oxford’s many colleges, so there is a tremendous sense of literary history here. (Which sometimes translates into the JRR Tolkein equivalent of “Washington slept here.”) Occasionally, you see stodgy-looking white haired men walking around in Master’s robes. Or young women from a far-flung corner of “The Empire” in the same attire.



Oxford quotation of the day: "You remember, of course, Somerset Maugham's description in 'The Vessel of Wrath'... This reference wouldn't make it in America."