Off to Oxford!

If anyone noticed, in my last blog I learned to insert links and put photos side-by-side! I'm hoping that my blog abilities will continue to grow! Who knows what will be next. Maybe I'll put text next to pictures!

After spending a wonderful four whole days in Wales it was sadly time to leave that magical land that I found and now want to live in forever! We hauled our luggage down to Cardiff Central Station and got on a train there for the final time. We transferred at Didcot Parkway and got on a train headed for... you guessed it, Oxford! In Oxford we are staying at the Bath Place Hotel. The hotel is in a 17th Century cloister of buildings. It's quite cool! There's no elevator and our hotel room slopes on two planes, but I wouldn't change it for the world! Right outside our window there is the Turf Tavern which is a 13th Century Ale House. Some nights it can be a bit loud, but it always quiets down exactly at 10:30 which is nice and a little odd.

I know the photo is a little lop sided and ignore my feet, but look at the angle of the desk compared to the ceiling. It's quite different! Also, see that when you look at the corner of the wall by the window it bends out a bit about 1/3 of the way down. Yep, that's there and it's amazing!

P.S. I don't actually know how I got the text to go beside the photo. Hopefully I can do it again!






After we dropped our stuff off we went and stood outside my college, my new home for the next yearish, Harris Manchester College! One of those colleges that is never in any movie or TV show and is really small and no one goes and sees, but it's mine! It's right near the Bodleian Library and the Museum of the History of Science where I expect I'll be spending a fair amount of my time. In relation to that, after we stood outside Harris Manchester we wandered over to the Museum of the History of Science and explored its exhibits. Seeing all the astrolabes was really neat. I've learned about them and have only seen one. I think I might be writing my paper on them, but on what aspect I'm not sure. There was a lot of interesting information and objects even though there were only three small floors. Other than the astrolabes I liked the different globes, the microscopes and the telescopes. I was very proud of myself for recognizing half the names and already knowing some information that was presented. Even though this is my chosen field of study I have only ever taken two classes on the History of Science. One was a general course that also focused on Medicine and Technology and the other focused specifically on the History of Astronomy and Cosmology. I think my time at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum last summer helped my knowledge.

Harris Manchester College

Museum of the History of Science

Astrolabes

After spending some nice quality time getting to know the Museum we went for supper and then explored Oxford for a bit before heading off to sleep! To learn more about Harris Manchester College go here: http://www.hmc.ox.ac.uk/pages/default.asp?id=5. If people want me to tell more about its history just tell me. I'll post pictures of my room and inside the College later!