Oxford

As soon as we heard that Harry Potter was filmed in a real place, our curiosity was piqued. We were also attracted to the home of Tom Yorke from Radiohead and, oh yeah, one of the intellectual capitals of the world.

We spent the day walking around Oxford with Tatiana acting as an incredible tour guide showing us a number of amazing local haunts and Colleges, from the gorgeous halls where Harry Potter was filmed (Christ Church college - one of the dozens of gorgeous Gothic Revivalist residence masterpieces) to the Oxford Natural History museum where we saw a skeleton of the Dodo bird that inspired Lewis Carroll in Alice in Wonderland, the Pitt Rivers Museum, the covered market and Blackwells bookstore. We ended our walk in the Old Parsonage Hotel with afternoon cream tea, scones and jam. The air was clean, the fall foliage was everywhere, the sky was clear -- it was wonderful.

Visiting Oxford naturally led us to make comparisons between the British and American university systems, a few of which we thought we would share. Although we had heard about Oxford before visiting, and although we thought we understood their system, it became clear to us that there were many things we did not understand. Oxford is run on the tutorial system, which essentially means that you don't take classes. Instead of following a set of courses that lead you to a major, you have tutors with whom you individualize your studies. You literally go to your tutor's office, sit on his/her couch, drink tea, have a conversation and leave the office with a pile of books that you must read for your next session. Additionally, the University isn't the main governing body - undergraduates take their tutorials, make friends and eat in Colleges (read: dorm rooms in small castles) and graduate students are ruled by departments. Needless to say, this system is much more traditional than in the US. Whereas in an American system you would see people wearing "Oxford" sweatshirts and jeans, slumping from class to class, instead we saw students in blazers and pashminas strolling from tutorial to tutorial. People wear robes and caps to special "formal" dinners which are three to five course meals served in College dining halls, exactly like in Harry Potter. These meals happen a few times a week! Once the teachers arrive in the halls, the students must get up and leave, and then, the teachers eat on an elevated platform and follow their dinners with madeira, brandy, and another three course set of desserts.

And one final mention must be made to the Pitt Rivers Museum. In dim lights, this three level museum houses the artifacts from centuries of English foraging across the world. Each display has a hundred small trinkets from charms against the evil eye, to small statuettes from India and Nepal, Egyptian sarcophagi, West African art, shrunken heads, arrows, guns, clothes, Chinese ceramics, and amulets to protect against warts and other diseases. If you visit Oxford, be sure to stop by (David's opinion). Tanya would like to note that while the collection is impressive, the display is cluttered and confusing.

We left Oxford with a little bit more knowledge of what our English friends had suffered through at college. This is the breeding ground for the elite. The experience was eye-opening.