#11.12.14

Day 3 - Night at the Christmas market

After our very pleasant visit to the Blenheim Palace, we were given free time in the evening to finish up our project and simply enjoy the last evening in Oxford. Since we still had to interview a last person (and I personally really wanted to visit the Christmas market in the evening), we strolled around the city until we finally arrived at the street where a large market was located. As it was raining, it wasn't as packed as I had expected it to be. Dozens of wooden stalls were set out along the road, Christmas lights adoring the edges of their roofs and kitschy ornaments seated on their counters.

As we passed a few of these stalls, we spotted a lone man standing behind a refreshments counter. Noting that it wasn't bustling at his little house, we chose him as our last interview contestant. This was a great thing as well, because now we had prepared questions about the literate citizens of Oxford and Christmas traditions. Because the former was the same as the one we asked the Bodleian library assistent, we could later contrast their opinions. The man was glad to help us!

Do you think the average Oxford citizen is more literate than anyone else in Britain?

Where do you mostly notice this?

Unfortunately, his answers weren't as extensive as I hoped them to be but nonetheless we got an image of the average Oxford citizen, and the image they have. Next, we had a question regarding Christmas. I personally was curious about this because, to be very honest, I was slightly disappointed by the Christmas market itself. But I will come back to this later.  

What does Oxford do during Christmas, except for the markets? What sets it apart from the rest of the UK?

As the assistant had explained, Oxford has no significant difference regarding their traditions and ways. More cities in the UK have these kinds of market places with bands that play Christmas carols to set the overall mood.

Coming back to my disappointment, I have no particular affinity to the UK but in regards of Christmas and the holiday spirit, I had higher expectations. But unfortunately these were not reached during our stay in Oxford. It might be the idea that movies had given me of the country but I had expected more decoration and actual Christmas trees than the occasional typical tree with a minimum of lights.

Day 3 - Morning at the Bodleian

In the morning of the eleventh, our group went exploring the city of Oxford in search for the answers to our questions regarding the project. We still had to interview two people and where better to do this than at the Bodleian Library, filled with hundreds of books - some even unopened - holding precious literature and information. The red thread in our chosen topics was, luckily, literature so it was an easy, and quite logical, decision to visit this famous library. 

The day before during our Trinity College tour, we had passed the location and entered the large courtyard. My group members and I were all surprised by its size and content, and were to make sure to visit the shop located in one of the corners. Here we found a great collection of small pocket books and souvenirs of various famous books and writers.

We also spotted a few books that told about WW1. Janneke and I had to prepare a presentation during HIEL about the warpoets and coincidentally we found a book about Wilfred Owen, a soldier and poet during that time (whom we have also discussed during the presentation).

The shop's assistant stood at the back of the compact store, busying herself with a new load of supplies to fill the shelves again. As we wanted to interview someone that was connected to the library and, in our eyes, knowledgeable about the location, the assistant seemed a good choice. We were curious about the people of Oxford and their thoughts about the city's connection to certain books so we had some questions ready. Thankfully, she was happy to assist us!

Is the average person in Oxford, in your opinion, more literate than in the rest of the UK?

Do librarians, the people who work with books, specially come to Oxford because it is the literary town?

Do you think it's the name 'Oxford' that attracts them?

The conversation was quite enjoyable because even though the woman was of French origin, she was very knowledgeable about the city's correlation with literary tourists.

Secondly, we had questions regarding the famous writer J.K. Rowling because one of our topics was about Harry Potter, and the city itself was highly connected to the movies.

Would J.K. Rowling have been inspired by Oxford in a way? Or is it just the movie people who think 'mwa, Oxford looks great, let's do it here'?

Do you notice more Harry Potter fans that they come here mostly because the movies have been shot here?

I was surprised to hear that Tolkien was more famous than Rowling in Oxford, mainly because many locations were used for the movies so you'd think that many Potterheads would visit. But I do understand Tolkiens fame because, as Ilonka said during the interview, his books and movies are on the rise because of their current activities. With the new Hobbit movie and the whole hype around it, many would obviously know the name, even if you were no fan of the books. 

When we were picking topics for our Oxford assignment we quickly found out that three of us really wanted to do the Harry Potter bit. We all grew up with Harry Potter in one way or another so it seemed like a lot of fun to us to be able to see the film locations for ourselves.

Alyssa, not being a Harry Potter fan herself, agreed on picking this topic and being the good sport she is she watched ALL of the Harry Potter movies in the weekend before going to Oxford. Talk about dedication!

During our Trinity College tour our guide already pointed out the famous 'Ferret tree' as we have come to call it, rising above a tall wall. This tree is the tree that Draco Malfoy was sitting in in the Goblet of Fire and where he subsequently got turned into a ferret. It was quite a memorable scene indeed.

You can imagine our disappointment when we arrived Thursday morning only to find out that the doors were closed. A sign said they weren't open for visitors that day. 

We went towards the Bodleian library afterwards to try and find the room where the infirmary was staged during the first movie, The Philosopher's Stone. Sadly this was closed off as well to the public.

In this scene Dumbledore eats a Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Bean and finds out it is earwax.

Our last chance to find something within the time we had was Christ Church where the Great Hall was situated but during our tour we were told that this was also closed off for the time being due to renovations. Our guide told us that the roof was collapsing so it wouldn't be safe to go there.

Having heard from other classmates that there was a Harry Potter shop somewhere in Oxford we decided to go look for it. It wasn't long until we'd found it and it's easily recognizable by the wares in the windows.

This shop is amazing for a Harry Potter fan! They sold all kinds of merchandise ranging from little pins and badges to t-shirts, wands and scarves in the different Houses' colours!

It was great to see a shop like this but we certainly recommend bringing a lot of money as the items can be very expensive!

All of the items sold were 'authentic' (Well, as authentic as a wand can get... You won't be able to cast Wingardium Leviosa with it, sadly.) and looked great! If you like collecting Harry Potter things you should definitely visit this shop!

All in all it was a shame that we didn't get to see the actual film locations but we certainly enjoyed ourselves trying to find them and getting just a glimpse of them from the outside.