Oxford and heat – two words I wouldn’t have expected to go well together. And up to know I haven’t been convinced that they do. Well, honestly, I have not seen much of Oxford, yet.
I arrived by train, which never yields a good first impression of a city. I didn’t get to see much of Lewis’s Oxford on the taxi drive either. But Christchurch, now, Christchurch College is everything I expected from it. It simply breathes history and learning. My room is just under the roof in one of the buildings forming the Pembroke Quadrangle.
Despite its modern (well English-modern) furnishings, you can still imagine someone like John Donne or Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde or Lewis Carrol making their way up the four floors (I don’t actually know, if any one of these studied in Christchurch, they went to one or the other of the Oxford colleges, anyway). I’m not very tall but I can touch the ceiling without getting up on my tiptoes. Maybe, Lewis Carroll touched the very same spot?
The Blue Boar Quadrangle was a bit of a disappointment (being an annexe from the 80ies or so and looking it). But the Hall – you really do not need any Harry Potter movie trappings to make that impressive!
Shall I say something about the heat? Well, it’s just hot, you know. Sticky, stuffy, sweaty. And very light. What this does to my fellow students’ and my ability to concentrate on the dark and sinister workings of the gothic villain remains to be seen…
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