Oxford!

On Sunday, I went to Oxford (via the oxford-london bus, called the Oxford Tube) and met up with a friend from Princeton who is studying there! 

We walked around quite a bit - Oxford is bigger than I thought! There is a lot of green space but it is ALL inside courtyards like this one...

Beautiful ivy-covered walls that are turning shades of fall...

and I thought this bridge was pretty cool...

We walked up the highest tower in Oxford, from which you can see views of the whole city. The staircase was the smallest, tightest stone spiral staircase I've ever seen in my life...made me a bit nervous (I was taking deep breaths the whole time) but the view was totally worth it!

Oxford was built in the 1200s - still looks like a medieval city

and this is me!

climbing down was much easier than going up...this was one of the windows in the staircase

Afterwards, we went to the university's art museum (which is world famous!) and then a coffee shop to sit, chat, and have tea.

Dinner was actually a scene out of Harry Potter (fun fact they actually do film scenes from the "Hogwarts" great hall and libraries at Oxford!). We had dinner in one of the college halls completely by candlelight...

I had to wear "robes" which are not quite the full robes you would picture but more like a thin, black, long vest type thing that I had to borrow from one of his friends. You stand up when the professors walk in and don't sit down until they walk up to their head table (which is perpendicular to our long table), hit a gavel, and say something in Latin. It was 3-course meal (SO GOOD) and then we could not leave until the professors stood up, banged the gavel again, said something in Latin again, and left. 

I got home around 11 - really fun day and I was lucky to have a tour guide that knew the place so well! Incredible that it has literally been around for over 800 years. Great day!!