D22 + 23: Daughter concert and off to Oxford!

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July 10: Lazy day, Daughter concert

Another busy lazy day? Haha. Short and sweet.

First thing, I headed to Leinster Gardens. I had wanted to go beforehand but clearly now that they were mentioned in Sherlock, it was a necessity 😉 It's quite something though, looking up at the facades - you have to pay attention to pick out the facades compared to the real houses. It's in the windows and the front doors. Very cool.

For lunch I had to go grab my usual London treat and get a sandwhich and hot choco from Speedy's. Always good for a lunch break. Of course I couldn't resist the usual photo of "221B" where I noticed the knocker was crooked. Def made me smile.

I was planning to head down to Waterloo or Blackfriars so o could walk along the river but it started to rain heavily enough... so my afternoon became my shopping day for my time in London. I had given myself a budget and I'm still within it so that's good enough for me.

Tonight it wasn't a play, rather I went to see Daughter play at Somerset House. It was a pretty good show - kind of short..? Opening act was meh, Daughter only got on after 9 and it finished just before 11pm. I appreciate it's an outdoor venue and it has to end by 11pm but... yeah. It was great while it lasted haha. Poor girl, his guitar kept buzzing and she was trying to small talk but was so so so nervous. But when she sings she owns that stage at least.

July 11: Oxford day trip!

Took a day trip to Oxford today - oh, I may need to come back another time. Just lovely! (Sorry no photos - I don't have wifi at this hostel... it's a cable and it's a pain.)

I basically spent the day wandering - ha, what else is new? What's even better is that I followed the "walking tour" on the map from the tourist centre and when I cross referenced with my list of what I wanted to see, I realized I'd covered them all and then some. That's the way to do it.

Oxford is truly just beautiful - every single building seems to be old world and full of charm. (Ok maybe not the new shopping centre and you know, McD's and all that but everything that isn't a multinational retail thing.) I really was happy just to wander because there was always something grabbing my attention.

That being said, I didn't go into that many buildings... couple reasons for that. One, most of the colleges don't open to the public until after 2pm (I was catching the bus at 4:30pm to go back to London). But really I wasn't all that interested because you had to pay for most buildings (ha... that's never my strong suit) and those buildings all had giant tour groups (of mostly children) showing up. I loathe getting stuck in a tour group that's not one I willingly signed up for haha. So yes, bad timing, I'm cheap and I don't enjoy large groups? There we go.

Doesn't matter though! Like I said, the buildings are gorgeous from the outside anyway. And the gargoyles and statues - oh so many to choose from! They look down at you from pretty much every little nook and cranny and boy some of them are funny lookin' faces. I love it.

There's also a lot of green space considering the 50 colleges they have crammed into their city centre. (I'm exaggerating with 50, but not by much.) It was nice just to walk along the pathways as well and watch the dogs. Ok, there was this one giant poofy monster of a beautiful dog that I saw at three different points during the day and honestly the third time I almost asked the owners if I could just take a picture haha, the dog was that gorgeous. (I miss my pets, ok.)

I did, however, go into a few buildings. I went into St Mary's which was an ok enough church, but I also climbed the tower - that was an adventure! Most of the climb is in a spiral stone stair case that is barely wide enough for one person and the steps are quite steep. It's basically just good luck if you manage to go up/down without running into someone because you can't see the other end, there's no one managing it and there isn't really anywhere for you to "step off" to let someone pass. There were little window sill like things every 20 steps or so... I would have been screwed though because I had my small backpack and my purse so there is no way someone could have passed. It was also tricky up top because even though you can get a 360 view of Oxford, the platform basically goes 300 degrees around and then you have to go back... and again it's only narrow enough for one-way traffic. Sigh. But at least there are little corner areas you can step into to let people pass. Definitely worth that little hassle - it's lovely to see the skyline because of all the old buildings - it certainly doesn't look like any random city. I was happy it was a clear day, but I can't help but think how cool it would look in the mist/fog.

I also visited their incredibly old Bodleian library which is still in use for all their schools and such... well, I visited part of it. To visit the actual 'library' you have to join a tour and pay like $15 which wasn't happening. I very much enjoyed looking around the grounds and just taking in the sheer size of it - multiple buildings and such. I did pay though to visit the Divinity School which is inside the library - of note for two things in particular. One: Oxford's first lecture hall which started construction in 1423 (that's old, ok). Two: it was used as the infirmary for the Harry Potter movies. Yep. Important things. And it was only $2. Well worth it.

There was also a few exhibition re: WW1 with a bunch of original letters from soldiers and from government officials including the Prime Minister at the time. Although those were interesting, I think it was all the propaganda posters that hit me the most - one wall was all posters re: the war and its efforts and another wall was all just conscription and recruitment posters. I don’t know, it gave me the shivers. I’ve seen many before in war/holocaust museums of course, but that many in one spot and just the messages behind them seemed to strike me more than usual. Could also be because I just finished reading that book “Yellow Birds” which is about Afghanistan. I don’t know. Anyway, nice exhibit.

Ah. I also had a complete heart attack moment while walking down one of the main roads. A truck passed me and literally as it went by I heard the loudest pop n' bang of my life and in the same instant felt my leg get soaked and I literally "AHHH"d because I had no sweet clue what had just happened/what was all over me. Thankfully as I looked back into the road it was a water bottle the truck drove over causing the top to pop off and the liquid to drench me. But seriously, the chances? Thanks Oxford. I avoided your rain, but got wet anyway.

Drive back to London was slow goings... I suppose I should have known better than to arrive in London, during rush hour, by road. Silly me. That's ok though, no big rush. I was switching hostels tonight so I did that, repacked my bag because I have a bunch of new goodies and that was that!

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