The one where we go to college. Or at least a college town.

We meet up with friends from Arizona and their deep, abiding wish is to go to Oxford, visit some museums, and go to Christ Church.

Sounds like fun. So it is off, off, off to Paddington to catch another train out of town.

Fun fact: In all my years of reading about the 20th century British royals, one constant was that they all wound up dying at some point and, after a right proper royal funeral, need to be reverently taken to Windsor for burial. And every time, they left London at Paddington station.

But don’t take my word for it; look! This is a fond farewell to George V:

In Oxford, the Pitt Rivers museum is closed, unexpectedly, which is a shame because it looked really interesting.

We hike to the next museum, the Ashmolean, which is huge and wonderful.

It has a wonderful restaurant, too. I had the risotto.

After the Ashmolean, we head to the White Horse pub; their liquor license was granted in 1551. It’s wonderful and tiny (and yes, I’m aware that I’ve used the word ‘wonderful’ several times in a row, and deservedly so) and the proprietor is hilarious.

We’re marching across Oxford when The Best Thing Happened: I see a basset hound. He was sitting with his people on a fountain. I ran over to the basset (because that’s what you do when you see a basset hound) and petted him. His name was Grumpy. He was not, in fact, a grumpy dog. Selective, maybe, but not grumpy. His people totally got it.

We keep walking, stopping only for Christ Church and the hall that was the inspiration for the Great Hall in Harry Potter.

 

 

Then it’s a railway trip back to Paddington, and an Uber ride to Pimlico to have tapas with two friends from high school who wound up marrying British men and settling in the UK.

Good times.

© E. Stocking Evans 2018