More Oxford in Images

To save myself the trouble of going on a similar trip when guests start to arrive, I signed up yesterday afternoon for an Oxford City Sightseeing tour.  You know the type: the obnoxious big red buses with people leering from the upper level, cameras bristling.  It wasn't immensely helpful, and it didn't take very long - as I said before, Oxford is incredibly small - but I did get the opportunity for a few nice snaps.

Apparently, studying in Oxford is not a big deal, because everyone and their mother seems to have done so.  Our tour guide (pictured above) couldn't pass a single college without listing four or five famous attendees.  When his list began to include people like Bill Clinton and Kris Kristofferson, the American country singer, I felt like he was mistakenly reading from a copy of Who's Who in Every Cultural Sphere, Ever. I guess when you're the third-oldest university in Europe, you've got time to form a collection.

Speaking of collection, we drove past the famous Bodleian library (bookworm heaven, for which I will soon have a library card).  I knew it was large, but I didn't realize why: it's a copyright library.  That means every book published in the UK needs to send a copy to the Bodleian to ensure copyright protection.  So when they say "miles and miles of shelving", they mean it quite literally.

They do a lot of studying in Oxford, but never fear.  Parked in front of Trinity College, I noticed an advert which seemed to suggest they know how to have fun, too:

We remained fully clothed for my particular tour, but who knows?  It was cold that day.