The scene in Harry Potter where the 1st year students enter Hogwarts and meet Professor McGonagall was filmed on this 16th century staircase.
I’m in Oxford! For the second year in a row I’ve traveled to England to spend my vacation studying at Christ Church College, Oxford University. For one week, 130 other students and I break off into groups of 12 or so to study subjects as varied as The English Choral Tradition, King Alfred and the Vikings and Victorian Scandals. We eat in the Great Hall where King Charles I held his parliament during the civil war and which was replicated in film studios to create the dining hall of Hogwarts. (Check out the wikipedia pic of the Great Hall–it’s better than mine.)
We have classes in the mornings, and in the afternoon we take tours, visit museums, do our homework or just walk around the streets of Oxford, amazed to be following in the footsteps of John Locke, Lewis Carroll, Oscar Wilde, T.E. Lawrence, Edmond Halley, Aldous Huxley, William Gladstone and J.R.R. Tolkien, to name a very few.
Oxford's Botanic Garden with a view of the Magdalen College Tower.
In the evening, we gather together again for a concert, pub crawl or lecture. (Last night we watched Morris Dancers in Tom Quad.)
I am studying the Brontes with the erudite Val Dodd and 11 intelligent and interesting fellow students. (One of my classmates, Marilyn Green Faulkner, is blogging about the class if you’d like more details.)
I can’t recommend this type of vacation highly enough. If there is a great university city you’d like to visit, why not see if they offer continuing education courses there. The program I’m taking is called The Oxford Experience, and there are people here who’ve been coming year after year. I just might become one of them.
Morris dancers in Tom Quad.
PS: As I write, Great Tom, the bell in Tom Tower, is ringing 101 times to signal the closing of the Christ Church gates, a tradition that goes back to the curfew of the original 101 Christ Church students.
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About Me
Hi! I'm Lena, a young adult fantasy author from Toronto.
Oh, very nice. I am a bit jealous ^.^ but it looks like you are having a good time!
Thank you!
Say Hi to Morse!
Hi Rob! Actually they are supposed to be filming an Inspector Lewis around town this week, but I haven’t seen him.
Sounds wonderful – enjoy your experience!
Thanks Dawn!
Sounds AMAZING. Good for you!!
Thanks!
Totally cool and exciting. Also, this is my first visit to your site and I like the look and “feel” of it a lot. Will keep checking back to hear more about this great trip. And can you try to take a pic of that Alice stained glass window? (I did my MA thesis on Alice — and guess what I named my daughter?!!)
Thanks Monique! It’s pretty high up but I’ll definitely try to take a pic at breakfast tomorrow.
So jealous that you got to go there!
You know, one of the reasons I ended up going for the first time was because I was a little envious of a friend who was going to graduate school–so maybe this will inspire you!
What an amazing way to travel! I’d love to do that!