Oxford and home again...

After a morning of house hunting with the Condies, we decided to take advantage of some sunny weather by making an afternoon trip to the city of Oxford (a little less than half an hour away by car).

We started our day with a walking tour of the Bodleian Library in Oxford (which has been around since the 1400's). Emily and I both worked in the George Fox University Library during college, but we found this place to be slightly more impressive than our college's stacks (and people are so much better at whispering here). Apparently, part of the Harry Potter movies were shot in that library. Below is a shot of Emily in the Divinity school which is attached to the library. The tour guide told us that this room was also featured in the film.
After our very bookish tour, we took a bit of a walk around Oxford's picturesque streets, and got a few shots that I think are contenders for this year's Christmas card:
I think that Oxford has surpassed Windsor (in my mind anyway) as the "quaintest" city in England. On almost any street in the city centre, you find yourself surrounded by leaded cathedral glass windows, church spires, and middle aged men in bow ties on bicycles. It's a beautiful place to spend an afternoon.

Before leaving the city, we decided to pop in at the "Eagle and Child" pub, which our guide book told us was the favorite watering hole of "The Inklings." If you're not up on your 20th century authors, "the Inklings" was a group of friends (mostly Oxford scholars and authors) that included JRR Tolkein and C.S. Lewis. The group used to meet weekly at the Eagle and Child pub, and we thought it might be fun to drop in for a bite to eat:
When we arrived, we were told that the kitchen was out of nearly all the traditional English favorites (steak & ale pie, fish & chips, etc), so we decided to take a couple of photos and then leave. (Brad ordered a half pint of ale so that he could have his photo taken in the corner of the pub where "The Inklings" used to meet - he'd like everyone to know it was a very decent cask-conditioned IPA).

Since none of us had eaten yet, we decided to take the long way home, through the town of Beaconsfield and the tiny village of "Forty Green," which claims to be home to the oldest pub in England. It's called "The Royal Standard of England," and claims to have operated since the time before the Normal invasion of England (that's over 900 years ago for those of you not up to speed on your English history). Whether or not any of these claims are actually valid was irrelevant to us. Either way, it was a very old, very eclectically decorated public house, and like most country pubs, had a solid understanding of how to deep fry a plate of food.

We split a few orders of fish and chips in a room that was at least 400 years old, then made the 15 minute drive back home. This probably won't make much sense to our European friends, but to me there's still a lot of novelty attached to old buildings. I think it's very cool that Emily's parents live so close to a restaurant that's probably been serving food since before Europeans even knew the Americas existed.

We don't have any questions for you today, but if you'd like to vote on your favorite photo for this year's Christmas card, feel free to give us your opinion. Or, if you've got a fun travel memory that you've been reminded of just now, feel free to share that too!