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Oxford

Oxford is amazing. I may have overdone it a bit, but I can't think of a single thing I wouldn't have regretted leaving out.

I spent most of my short morning wandering around trying to follow the directions I had written down, until I came across the information center. I know I could have looked up directions on my phone, but there's something about paper maps and directions that make more sense to me.  I bumped into a lot of cool stuff as I walked around: a couple of buildings closed for a graduation and the graduates themselves, an Oxfam shop and a street market.  Plus, I got a nice overview of the town which made the book nerd and history geek parts of me very very happy.  I may have imagined Oxford dozens of times in a bunch of different time periods, but there's nothing like experiencing it in person.

Radcliffes Camera and the Bodleian were absolutely stunning. Radcliffes camera was undergoing renovation so the view was a bit restricted but the view of the new Bodleian made up for it well enough.  As for the old Bodleian, I don't even know where to start. Even if I ignore the history and the tens of literary connections, the buildings themselves and the exhibits are fantastic.

There were two exhibits, open to the public at the Bodleian.  the first is a book binding exhibit with books based on works by Shakespeare.  The second is an exhibit on magical books. I could have wandered around either exhibit for hours. The book binding exhibit in particular was inspiring. I may have bound a few books if my own and seen a fair number of other people's work, but there's no comparison. The books were exquisite works of art.  The magic exhibit, complete with Ashmolean texts!, made me realize just how much Oxford as a place has been ingrained in the books I read: everything from Pullman's "His Dark Materials" to the Narnia books, "Alice in Wonderland", and "Alice I Have Been".

The latter two books are based around events that occurred in Christchurch, another of my stops.  The meadow and Alice's Shop were both whimsical and the gardens were beautiful as expected.

After leaving Christchurch, I headed back toward where I had started, wandering through the shops in Highgate Center and stopping off at the Castle and the Ashmolean Museum before ending my day a bit early back at the bus station.

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