Catch Up Part 3: Discoveries

As I've let more than a year go by with this site laying dormant, wondering if I'll ever go back to writing about these adventures of our time in England, I've finally returned, only to have Blogger change their settings and any editing of old posts, which admittedly, I neglected to publish back then, have gone horribly awry. So! Here I am, hopefully about to rock this writing universe like a hurricane once again, but until I have something new and improved, I'm trying to get the old ones done. Better late than never. As evidence, I offer you the below post from March of 2014 - not 2015 like it's dated - because when I do that, my sidebar disappears. Sigh. Google world - in all your technical wonder, why do you flout me thus? Nevermind. I will find another way. Til then, imagine a time when this town was still shiny and new..

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Not every tourist town has a world-renown and respected university in it and not every university town is swarmed with tourists all year round. And, even if your tourist town does have a university in it, I bet people don't come to see the university as their main tourist attraction. AND if said tourist destination does have a university at its center, it probably doesn't have THIRTY NINE of them like Oxford does (They count All Souls College, but it doesn't take any students so.. that's confusing.). So with all those schools, it usually feels a bit crowded in this teeny tiny city. Kind of like all of downtown Seattle at rush hour compressed into downtown Fremont for example. Essentially, three to four main city blocks with everyone in it trying to get somewhere and that doubles on weekends. Add in pouring down rain and you're lucky if you can get down a block with your umbrella in tact (Yes, it rains differently here than in Seattle. Also, with no car, well.. it's wetter. So now we are Umbrella People. I know. I feel the failure in my soul too.). I don't know where everyone is going, but for some reason, they all have to be out and about a lot. 

Usually we aren't deterred by the constant crowds of students hitting the books or the pints and slow-moving, camera-laden tourists, but for a few weeks in January, we took advantage of the quiet due to students still being gone for the holiday and the new term still a week or two off. 

Creepy clown art installation that everyone mentions at Cafe Coco on Cowley Road. Pretty good pizza and calzones. Mike wasn't so impressed (he has higher standards apparently), but we both enjoyed our cocktails. 

One of the most popular areas to hit for food is Cowley Road. Cowley is a popular student area, cheaper to live, lots of bars and eateries and one of the bigger music venues is there (We laugh every time we walk by it because Less Than Jake seems to always be set to play there, a band Mike has opened for two or three times and was always terrible he says. How are they still touring?). The street is swarmed on weekends. So far we've tried one of the pizza joints, a burger place, Lebanese and Spanish tapas. The latter two were the winners for us both despite the other two coming highly recommended by everyone we've met. Eh.. we've had better in Seattle and Chicago, we thought, and we admit we're a bit snobby about our stateside favorites. Still the town is noticeably without anything at all resembling a Dick's and though it boasts a popular ramen place, Wagamama, it's more like Seattle's Boom Noodle and not nearly as cheap and awesome as the pho you can get at any Seattle Than Bros locations. I know, I know.. we're trying to blend in and be open to everything, but sometimes, you can't help but contrast and compare. 

At least a couple of times, we've gone out with other people! Seriously, get us in a group setting and we get so excited that OTHER PEOPLE will be there besides just the two of us. I mean, we love each other and all, but we see each other All. The. Time. So a birthday for one of Mike's colleagues? Yes! Totes in!

Everyone started at our place for food and pre-funking and out we went to a new speakeasy called The Mad Hatter (really, Oxford may be getting a bit on the Alice overkill.. but who am I to say?). Apparently, when it's a Dutch person's birthday, the birthday person buys the first round. And then everyone dances, though I don't think that's part of the tradition. That's just what we did. 

Me and Mike's 'normal' face again.. Handsome, right?

Mathilde (from France) and Myrte (pronounced Meer-tah), the birthday girl from the Netherlands.

Dancing the night away (really they did til well after we, the old marrieds, left), Mathilde, Rachel (from Croydon, London-ish)..er the back of her head at least, Melissa (from Manchester) and Lukasz (from Poland). They're fun.

Our new friends even came out for the surprise birthday party I planned shortly thereafter for Mike. Oddly, there are no pictures whatsoever from that event. I actually don't know how that happened, but here's the condensed version: We ate alone in a corner of the restaurant and all his friends snuck in and sat in another part where he'd seen there were birthday balloons all set up and thought someone else was having a birthday too. Then, in order to get him into the other room after dinner, I couldn't come up with anything more than his birthday dessert was too big for our little table. Yeah, not my best work, but he bought it. I led him with his eyes closed to the other room where everyone began singing Happy Birthday when they saw him and Bam! Surprise! Yeah.. sorry. Pictures would've been better, but we'll all get over it.

My view from the top of St. Mary the Virgin church. Pretty.. 

We then spent the next couple of weeks doing things we just hadn't had time to do prior - like sight-seeing around town. There's a gorgeous lookout from the top of the tower in the main church belonging to the university called St. Mary the Virgin. It's where they tried all the Protestant heretics back in Queen Mary's day. And from the top of it, which you get to by climbing a zillion teeny tiny spiral stairs that can make anyone claustrophobic and dizzy, is an incredible view of Oxford.

To continue making the most of our  Let's See More Stuff Now, we got in a play in town - a hot mess of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night that was more pretentious performance art than theater to both of us - and after a quick lunch at Harrod's Montreaux Jazz Cafe as part of another day in London, we had front row seats to The 39 Steps, which completely exceeded any expectations we had of that. Amazeballs and hilarious.

We took walks along the canal, met boat kitties, saw double rainbows, ate at pubs, took a tour of the Oxford Castle complete with a costumed tour guide (which is always sort of awkward), had a lovely Valentine's day and experienced the grand re-opening of Oxford's Museum of Natural History that was really fun.

Oops! That clearly moves into February - but that's ok. Because it's March now as I'm writing this! I'm really behind.

And then she went back inside her boat! So cute!

This little thing came out to get a little pat from us.

Oooh! Along the canal on a gorgeous day and bam! Swans!

The tower at Oxford Castle.

This weird and creepy well where prisoners used to have to get water where clearly someone was partying the night before. Must've been a good party.

The crypt in the Oxford Castle. The pillars and arches are Norman, which dates it back to the 11th Century, around 1074!

The gorgeous ceiling of the Museum of Natural History. It's been closed for cleaning and restoration. I don't know how many windows they had to clean and replace, but it was a lot.

My bearded love and L'il Sebastian - ok some other stuffed pony from the Museum of Natural History.

The beautiful Radcliffe Camera, which I can't even go into, not unless I'm on a stupid tour.

The Museum of Natural History. Most of their dinosaurs are only replicas from the real ones in Chicago.

I got Mike the turntable for Christmas and he got me the xx album for Valentine's. Aww.