Londres and Oxford, otherwise known as Harry's backyard...

This post is dedicated to Nicole.

I just got back from London and Oxford; well, I've actually been back in Granada since Monday night, but classes have been going on, so I've been pretending to be busy with those. Just in case you're wondering, I'm taking the Political System of the European Union (riveting), Introduction to Linguistics, Varieties of Spanish, English to Spanish Translation, and an advanced Writing and Conversation class. At least that's my schedule at the moment - we'll see what actually sticks around, as I've got until Friday to make changes.

England was phenomenal. I knew that I liked London from the two nights I had spent there before about two years ago, though I was a little apprehensive to go back. The first time was after spending two weeks in Spain and France, and my mom and I were so happy to speak English that we would have been happy in Arkansas (well, OK, that's not true, but you get the point). I just wasn't sure if it would be so great the second time I went. It was. Getting there was hellish, but only because I had to take a taxi to the bus station at six in the madrugada, take a bus to Málaga two hours away, get on a city bus and then in a taxi, all to fly out in a hurricane. When I arrived in London, however, the sky was perfectly clear, the temperature around 70 degrees, and the leaves were actually changing colors! You must bear in mind that yes, in Spain the leaves do change, but they turn brown and die. England, strangely enough, is very much like New England in fall, just not quite as spectacularly colorful. My friend Steve met me at the station after my train ride into the city, and off we went to swindle my previously-booked hotel out of some money by sneaking him in for the night.

Demonstrating my amazing ability to take a picture with one hand and not look like it.

That night, we went to see a show in the West End (London's answer to Broadway). We had no idea what we wanted to see, but we didn't want to spend a lot of money. We walked by a theater advertising "39 Steps!," a comedy, apparently, based off of an old Hitchcock movie. "Why not?" we thought. We stepped into the box office and asked the man about the £10 box seats. "How are those guys?" "Great, if you want to sit behind a pole three balconies up behind a large woman in an even larger hat," came the answer. "OK, how about the £22.50s?" Then, he had a sudden idea. If we happened to be students, he told us, we could get the best seats in the house for £15. Needless to say, we did it, and sat in the third-row orchestra. The show was great: the 24 characters in the show were put on by a four-person cast which was very adept at quick changes and wonderfully ludicrous British humour, especially when they needed to play two or three characters who appeared on stage simultaneously. It also snowed on us at the end of the show (more accurately, foam fell on us from the ceiling, but it was pretty cool - I can't actually remember what that had to do with the plot).

The next day we left for Oxford. I live in a stunningly beautiful area of Spain, but Oxford had it all over Granada, at least in a different way. I think it helped that I've been yearning for fall, and also that the weather could not have been more perfect. Many, many of the buildings date back to the 12th century, and Steve took me on a great little tour around town and past some of the colleges. Oxford is very much a city, just with ancient buildings filled with brilliant, beautiful people with British accents, surrounded by a river and beautiful meadows. I miss green fields. There's a whole lot of red dirt in Spain. And the green there is amazing.

Punting along the Thames. OK, so this isn't punting, but some people were, and it was very atmospheric.



The most amazing part of the day, perhaps, was when Steve left me to go study - but not because Steve left me. I decided to entertain myself by paying £3 to walk around Christ Church, one of the "clotted cream" colleges of Oxford, according to Steve, which means it's where all the rich children of Lords go. I'm curious to see if you can tell why it was amazing from the pictures sans description (here's where you come in, Nicole!):






You guessed it! Christ Church was where they filmed many scenes for the Harry Potter movies, namely for the Great Hall and the stairs leading into it (seen above). Steve ruined the magic a bit for me by telling me that the actual hall at Christ Church (which they still use as a dining hall) was too small for the movie, so they essentially recreated it exactly (except for the magical ceiling) in a barn somewhere in the English countryside. But it didn't really matter. Amazing.

After spending the night on Steve's comfy floor, I left the next morning, falafel-and-hummus panini in hand, on the bus for London. That afternoon, I went to the British Museum (very cool, but I think the Met is better), ate at an Indian restaurant that night (Indian food!), and spent the next morning walking around aimlessly before I had to head to the airport. I walked around Regent's Park, which was originally designed as a garden for the extremely wealthy who were to build their houses around it, but which is now just beautiful. It was also the setting for 101 Dalmatians.





That morning, I also visited St. Paul's Cathedral, but just saw it from the door because I was too cheap to pay to actually walk around it. After that, I stopped by Temple Church, a 12th century replica of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Less interestingly, but still worthy of note, it was featured in the popular novel/Tom Hanks movie The DaVinci Code. It wasn't supposed to be open, but happened to be, and was beautiful and peaceful, the perfect respite before my fight for a turkey and cranberry sandwich at a busy deli for lunch (we don't have turkey in Spain, and it is a staple of my diet!), and the awful, awful RyanAir flight back to Granada.