12 May 2015 - Oxford (Day 6): I'm in Heaven

12 May was the first of many days spent zipping around the UK on a train. In all honesty, train rides were one of the things about which I was the most excited when I was planning my trip. I know that that probably sounds silly, considering all of the wonderful and iconic things I was going to see while I was in London and Scotland, but train rides have always held a special place in my heart. Taking the train is my favourite way to travel, hands down. It's so much more comfortable and relaxed than flying or driving (well, riding in a car, anyway, in my case), and you really get to appreciate the scenery while you travel, since rail lines are usually routed through more rural areas. You can kick back and read a book, or simply look out the window and enjoy watching the world go by. In my humble opinion, Canada seriously needs to catch up with the UK when it comes to railroads ASAP.

But, I've slipped over onto another--ha, ha--train of thought, so let's bring it back around to my first day outside of London. I decided to start small, with a day trip to Oxford. Seeing Oxford has always been a dream of mine, both because it's an ancient, gorgeous place with a rich history and because the university served as the setting for multiple scenes in the Harry Potter movies (have I mentioned that I'm a huge Harry Potter fan? Yes? Okay). I left fairly early in the morning, right after breakfast, and took the Tube to Paddington station, where I caught the train out to Oxford. My BritRail pass made all of this very easy, because I didn't have to worry about getting on the train at a certain time, or using a certain service, or anything else. I just showed my pass when the next train to Oxford arrived, and happily plunked myself down in First Class. For this ride, First Class meant that I got to sit in a slightly more spacious car, and I ended up getting a set of four seats (the kind that face one another) to myself, because the car was pretty empty. The seats weren't much fancier than normal seats, minus the small doily-like white covers that they put on the back of each one, presumably so everyone got a fresh place to rest their head. Here's a short video that I took on the ride. There isn't much to see except for some nice countryside, but I love the cabin noise. It's so soothing, which is one of the reasons I love trains.

Once we arrived at Oxford station, I walked up to the university campus, which was a bit of a walk, but nothing like the couple of treks I'd already put myself through in London. From the moment I got outside, I knew I was going to like the place. It really does look like you've gone back in time. I could see some of the colleges in the distance, and they looked like castles rising up over the other buildings. I didn't realize just how big the campus was really going to be! I actually only saw a couple of the buildings. You could definitely make more than a day trip out of Oxford if you wanted to. Here's just one example of the beautiful architecture that I got to appreciate.

I was very lucky, because the first building I walked up to was, in fact, the Bodleian library, the place I'd wanted to visit the most! It is one of the places where several scenes in the Harry Potter movies were filmed, so I was excited to be there and bought a ticket for a tour right away. Soon enough, I was walking through the doors. If I remember what the tour guide said correctly, the room in which you wait for your tour to start is also the room that was used as the Hospital Wing in the Potter films, as well as the room in which Minerva McGonagall gives the Gryffindor students a dancing lesson in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Here it is--just ignore my tour-mates!

I learned some really cool things about this room, such as the fact that, if you look up on the ceiling, you can see the coats of arms and the initials of the people who donated money to help the building get constructed, as well as the symbol of the person who did the carving work on the ceiling. We saw a few more rooms, and then it was time for the very best part: a visit to the library itself! Unfortunately, you can't have bags or cameras on that part of the tour, because students are working in the library and tour groups have to be as unobtrusive as possible. In fact, everyone on the tour actually wears a small receiver with an earpiece, and the tour guide has a microphone, so that she can speak very quietly and still be heard by the group. Seeing the library was amazing, especially because it includes the Restricted Section from the Harry Potter movies, included the screaming book chained to the shelves from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (which doesn't actually scream, sadly). It was a beautiful old place, with stained-glass windows and all, and it just felt exactly as I'd hoped it would: like a place full of history, tradition, knowledge, and even a little magic. I've got nothing against modern libraries, really, but my ideal library is one just like the Bodleian. Give me some dark, heavy wooden shelving and furniture, old radiators, stained-glass windows, and ancient books still chained to their shelves over some metal-and-glass creation any day.

The tour guide told us a lot of things about the library and about Oxford in general. One thing I found especially fascinating was that the Bodleian, like the British Library in London, is entitled to a copy of everything printed under copyright in the UK, including books, maps, sheet music, and more. This means that they receive something like 1200 items per day, which I'm sure is a book lover's dream but a librarian's nightmare! Obviously, this leads to storage problems, and so the Bodleian currently uses both an external storage facility and more than 200km of underground storage in an attempt to deal with it all. The tour guide said that even with the new external facility, they'd probably need to expand again in a few years. I'm sure that, back when that agreement was made, no one would have ever expected that we'd be able to print thousands of things in one day!

After my tour, which was definitely money well-spent, and a trip to the library's gift shop, which I never wanted to leave, I looked around a little more on my way to find a place to buy some Oxford gear. Here I am in front of the Radcliffe Camera, looking very pleased with myself, because I was! I'd looked at that building so many times in pictures and on Google Street view, admiring it and wondering if I would ever really get to see it, and here I am, grinning away like a fool in front of it.

The University Church of St. Mary the Virgin, near the Radcliffe Camera

I eventually did find a gift shop, and bought myself two sweaters and a scarf, which I've been proudly wearing all winter. By then, it was about time for me to start heading back to the train station, because the trip is 1-2 hours depending on which train you catch, and I didn't want to get back to London too late. As a solo female traveller, I always made sure to get back to my hotel while it was still light out. Of all the places I could visit, I'm sure that London is one of the safer ones, but I still didn't want to take any chances by being out after dark. On my way back to the train station, I was intrigued by a row of colourful houseboats docked along a small river, and took a few minutes to go and walk along the water to admire them. I didn't take any pictures of these, considering that they are people's houses, but it was a very pretty and relaxing walk, looking at the well-maintained houseboats and appreciating the ducks paddling around in the water. The weather was gorgeous again, sunny and about 16 degrees Celsius, which is just cool enough for a light coat.

Arriving at the station, I became a little afraid that I wasn't going to be able to get a spot on the train. The place was packed! It was a Tuesday, and getting toward the end of business hours, so I'm sure I was sharing the platform with lots of commuting students and workers. Here, the joys of having a First Class ticket really started to shine through. When the train arrived, 90% of the passengers who had been crowding the platform moved to one end of the train, while I got to go the other way. Behold, the glory that is a First Class car during rush hour!

Look at it! Just look at it! Curtains! Tables! Lumbar support! Oh, this is the life!

I swear, these seats were some of the comfiest things on which my rear end has ever had the privilege of sitting. They were fully adjustable and were an amazing relief for my back, which was stiff after a day of walking around Oxford. Plus, I had plenty of personal space, despite the crowd on the platform. This was what I had paid for when buying my ticket! It was kind of funny to sit there with all of the businessmen in suits, but hey, my ticket said First Class as much as theirs did, so I thoroughly enjoyed the ride back into London, where I spent one last happy night in the hotel room that felt like home by then. The next day was to be my last in London, culminating in my long-anticipated ride up to Fort William on the Caledonian Sleeper.

Continue to Day 7
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