A Weekend of Museums Part Two

Ok, so where was I?

Right so we spent the afternoon wandering around Oxford and the Ashmolean museum. After that we headed back to the hotel to have a rest and showers. Over the past 3 ½ months we’ve stayed in a lot of different accommodation. I’ve learned that you can read all the reviews online you want, but that won’t guarantee you a completely accurate view of where you are about to sleep! The place we stayed at in Oxford wasn’t too bad, a B&B-marketed place, which was a hotel and small units down the road and around the corner. It was run by one of those couples where the woman is rather large and bossy, and the man is quite scrawny and seems hen-pecked. When we went over for our (free) breakfast in the morning, I don’t think the husband quite believed we were actually staying there, and he asked us what our room number was – I didn’t hear him ask anyone else that! Anyway, the place was ok, shared bathroom with two other rooms which isn’t too bad, except you when you need to get up to go to the loo in the middle of the night, which I always do. The bathroom had a dead bolt lock, but unfortunately it was broken, so I had to do a MacGyver and use my nail clippers to manoeuvre the lock closed. (Yeah ok, it wasn’t that hard, but I came up with the solution straight away so I was pleased with myself).

We headed out to have dinner, and since it was Saturday, a beer out in a pub afterwards. It was bloody FREEZING but that didn’t stop all the girls out in their skimpy dresses with bare legs and arms. I am definitely getting old, I was more than happy to be wearing my thermal underneath my t-shirt, along with my jacket and scarf! One thing Cam and I have noticed in our travels so far – no matter where we’ve been, people out on the booze are always the same – skimpy clothes, over-preened boys, and bad music. Definitely getting old.

The next day we got up and had a (free!) cooked breakfast before heading to – wait for it – the Pitt Rivers Museum. (All photos are at the bottom of this blog entry.) My mum had built this up so much that I was a bit nervous it was going to be disappointing. As Cam will tell you, with a roll of his eyes I’m sure, I don’t like to be late for anything. My sisters are exactly the same, and we think it stems from being late from everything as kids (I may have written about this before…?) and now we all have a pathological fear of being late. (I remember it being so bad at one point that Chloe and I told our parents that our hockey games were half an hour earlier than they were, just so we got their right on time. There were four of us kids so I imagine it was hard to get us all sorted.) Anyway, this meant that straight after brekkie we headed to the museum to be there when it opened at 10am. So we got there a few minutes before it opened J But we weren’t the only ones, there was a group of 4 American students talking (loudly) right behind us.

The museum was AMAZEBALLS. It was like what you imagine a museum should be like: (maybe I’m the only one who does this) full of dinosaur bones, lots of skeletons, stuffed creatures of all varieties, and signs that said ‘PLEASE TOUCH’. I LOVED IT. Honestly, it was so hard to stop myself running around the museum like a small child touching stuff and yelling “Look at this Cam, look at this!!” To be honest, I did do that a bit.

There were so many cool things there I’ll have to really think about what my favourite things were. Ummm….Ok.

-       The T-Rex skeleton cast – that one’s a no-brainer. I’ve seen a T-Rex skeleton before, in a museum in San Francisco, but for some reason this one was so much more imposing, and a little terrifying.

-       Actually, pretty much all the dinosaur stuff.

-       The ‘PLEASE TOUCH’ displays. There were a lot of ‘PLEASE DON’T TOUCH’ signs as well, but I loved that there were a variety of things – a stuffed cheetah and Shetland pony (?!), some ancient rocks and fossils, amazing looking minerals, amongst other things

-       The Dodo skeleton and model of dodo. I have a weird love of dodos, I have no idea where it comes from, I just love the way they look.

-       The stuffed 4 metre crocodile. It was HUGE, and they grow up to 7 metres. Imagine coming across one of them in the wild.

-       All the animal skeletons. I’m starting to sound a bit morbid, but they were fascinating.

-       The shrunken heads. You were right Mum, they were awesome.

I didn’t enjoy the display of live cockroaches so much. Or the tarantula, which was exciting to see but still gave me the heeby-jeebies. I saw a little girl start crying when she saw it, so I wasn’t the only one a little freaked out.

If you ever get the chance to go to Oxford, you should definitely head to the Pitt-Rivers Museum. It’s FREE and they only ask that you make a £2 donation per person (which you obviously don’t have to, but you should!). I may have built it up too much now, but still – GO.

After Pitt-Rivers museum, we could have done anything and it still would have been a fantastic weekend. We decided to get on the Oxford City Site-seeing bus. It was about an hour around Oxford with a lovely old guy doing the commentary as we drove around. He was full of little tidbits of information about past students of the university and various stories about them. Apparently Rowan Atkinson did a Masters in Engineering there, I had no idea (although really, why would I?). The city tour was good but it was eye-wateringly, face-freezingly cold on the open top of the double decker bus. Still, it was worth doing.

Our last exploring in Oxford was at the Christ Church college, a university hall where students still actually live. It must be weird living in a place that is also a tourist attraction. I’ll be honest, the only reason I wanted to go there was because the bus tour guide said that some scenes from Harry Potter were filmed there. It was £7 to go in, and it wasn’t worth it! The only scene they said was actually filmed there was on the staircase, where Prof. McGonagall greeted Harry and his classmates on their first day at Hogwarts. The dining hall was pretty amazing though, apparently that inspired the Hogwarts hall, although it was created digitally for the movie.

After that, there’s not much left to say. We had a delicious dinner at an Indian restaurant (it was called 4500 if you want to know – apparently because Oxford is about 4500 miles from India) with very pushy waiters, and then the next morning we caught the train back to Cambridge (via King’s Cross in London). Next weekend we’re going back to London to catch up with friends, and then the weekend after that we’re going to Manchester to see MICHAEL MCINTYRE!!! You have no idea how freaking excited I am about that; he is my absolute favourite comedian at the moment. And from there, the travels are yet to be decided!

Cheerio!