The non-academic side of Oxford week

 A week ago Thursday, the building handy guy came in to check on the freezer, which has not been functional since I got here. He fixed that. Celebratory purchase was as follows:

Seriously, these are possibly one of the best things sold in the UK and Ireland.

Anyways, back to the handy guy. One of the other people in the building was having trouble with her heat, so he 'fixed' ours too. Meaning that he turned it on high, and left, saying he'd be back tomorrow. He did not return (to my knowledge) until this past Wednesday. In the intervening week, the heat was on full blast, and it was in the upper 60s and lower 70s most of time. This was not pleasant. At all.

Moving on, today (Saturday) was another 'requisite tourist stuff day'.

A big museum. The British Museum, which contains (among other things),

this really big rock with writing on it.  AKA the Rosetta Stone.

 

and this Egyptian statue of a kitty. Because there had to be a kitty picture.

Next,

 This is a large clock, and to prove I was there as well, me with said big clock.

Nearby, there is a large wheel:

I'm pretty sure there's some kind of unwritten law that when you come to London, you must take a picture of-with this big statue:

Trafalgar

This next one I didn't plan on, but since I passed it:

This next series I also did not plan. I will preface it by saying that what follows did clear up my confusion as to why a group of people around the corner from this 'street festival' were wearing MN Viking apparel:

Interestingly, I saw no Steelers apparel until I found this main area. Vikings fans however seemed to have found some of the local pubs.

And here I though I was only going to get (American) football stuff on Facebook. Silly me.

End of week at Oxford

Things I learned while working with the Oxford Bodleian collection:

1) Temporary locations are not fun. The basement of the science library was freezing as one might expect from a science building and a basement. I fought it for 4 days, but I finally caught a cold. I blame the temporary reading room for this.
I did get to go to the old Duke Humphries Special Collections Reading Room, at least to look inside.It's a good thing this had to wait until Friday. This place is so cool looking, but of course they don't allow photography in there. Knowing that not too long ago, I could have actually worked in there would have really put me off researching in the basement of the science library (which I should mention is actually called the 'Radcliffe' not 'Ratcliff' as I may have called it previously).

If you want to know what this incredible library looks like, go watch (or rewatch) Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and pay attention to the scene in which Harry and co. invade the Hogwarts library 'Restricted Section' with the Invisibility cloak. Guess where that was filmed.

2) Being able to use a camera really changes the way you work with the manuscripts. My notes aren't nearly as extensive as the ones for the British Library. The possible problem (which I dearly hope I have avoided) would then be that you can't figure out which picture refers to which part of the notes. Every evening I went through the pictures from the day and labeled them by manuscript and page reference.

3) Technology will always be problematic. Case in point: my camera decided that it felt its battery was dead, when in fact it was at approximately 45%. I had just finished photographing the last set of pages, but still had some of other parts of the last manuscript I wanted to record when the camera shut down on me. I took more notes anyways, and when I got home to charge it, discovered that the camera still had charge. Maybe it was sick of taking pictures of old books. I maintain that technology is developing some degree of sentience.

While in Oxford, I made sure to explore a little.

Part 1: The coffee shops. I like to work in coffee shops. As such I wanted to try as many of the local ones as I could.

The best coffee shop in Oxford:

Not 'probably', 'really'.

The second best:

The third best is a little cart near one of the really old little buildings near the end of Broad Street. I didn't get a picture, and I don't remember the name. My bad,

The fourth best:

Wishful thinking.

And the last (in part due to the higher price and later opening time, neither of which please me):

As these last two places might suggest, Oxford is quite proud of its history. I should have expected this but towards the end of the week, there were people running around in academic robes as everyday-wear. Just for reference, the official Oxford term doesn't start for another two weeks, so I'm guessing these people are post-graduates (ie- graduate) students back early to get a  start on their own stuff.

I also saw a couple of little kids (maybe around 10 or so) running down the street just outside of the university wearing similar robes. They appeared to be trying to avoid being tardy to their school, and I really wish I hadn't been on a bus going in the opposite direction at the time, because that would have made an adorable picture.

And now, because I could (and clearly did):

In case you can't read the building's name, this is the Oxford University Press building (part of it anyways, the complex actually takes up most of the block).

And last but not least, some obligatory tourist photography:

Next week, it's on to Cambridge. But before that, two final pictures. One a bookstore, and two one of the more awesome things it sells.

Things that for some reason wouldn't work yesterday

Entrance to Current reading room building:

And for the Old reading room building:

 

I think it is pretty self-explanatory why I was looking forward to being in the traditional old reading room.

Again, current area which is not bad, really:

 This next one is not part of the library, but the buildings are connected. There's a sign out front that says this is where the first debates on Darwin's Origins of Species took place in 18-something-or-other.

 

But how much cooler is this, seriously:

Technically this one to the right isn't part of the Bodleian, it's across the street.

Anyways, there isn't much new to add to today. I did notice though that the attendance in the Bodleian Special Collections seems to be far more regular than in the British Library. I was also absolutely the youngest person in the room by a decade yesterday (Monday). This never happened in London.

Here's a few more random photos of the old library area where you can still get inside if you go on a tour or to see the current exhibit  which I plan to do Friday: