2. Oxford, Oxfordshire

Now that I've nearly left, I'll write.

There are no Uggs in Oxford; there are no Honda Civics; there are no fast-food outlets; there are no earbuds dangling from ears; there is no litter on the ground; there is no rabble. There are only men in black gowns, smoking pipes, walking slowly, their eyes cast downward, reading; there are only ancient structures with lovely spires; there are only blue skies in Oxford.

It is a city. It is small, but the longer I stay here the more it keeps enlarging. Worchester College is on the edge of the City Centre. Thus the grounds here are more expansive than at the other colleges. There is a significant pond, award-winning gardens, a cricket pitch. When I leave my dorm towards the centre of the college I can walk past lavender bushes and through an orchard. There is a college cat. Rupert Murdoch is an alumnus.
Leaving Worchester, I can enter the Centre through Gloucester Square, where there are markets on Thursdays, cafes, a falafel stand, a cinema. It opens onto George St., two-lanes, which has a theatre where South Pacific will play starting in September. Yesterday we went to Jamie's Italian restaurant on George St. (Jamie Oliver, the celebrity chef who tried to make America skinny).
Cornmarket Street crosses George St. On Cornmarket -- a main pedestrian thoroughfare -- crowds of tourists swarm its length on the weekends. It has an HMV, a Burger King and a McDonalds. As its end-vista (?), there is a great spire.
Or to continue on George St., it becomes Broad Street. It is broad. How simple are Oxford's street names -- High Street, New Street! On Broad Street is Blackwell's Bookshop, which is apparently famous in circles I don't frequent. It has three different stores: the main, cavernous store with a Starbucks-equivalent on one side of Broad Street; a music store across the street; and a store dedicated to posters and art books. The Bodleian Library can also be accessed from Broad Street. It is maybe the oldest library in Europe and has a copy of every book ever published in Britain.
More later.

1. Arrival and MIstaken First Impressions

Presently my first laundry here at Worchester College (pronounced Wuh-ster) is spinning in the machine. It serves to remind me that our first week of classes is past, Richard III is past, the "new" is past, that there are still three more laundries and weeks to go. I'm glad that that's how it stands: more to come than has come already.

Initially Oxford was ludicrous. Its age -- its most striking quality -- irked me. Maybe it was the regret of not being housed in an old building -- a projection thing.

Maybe it also had to do with a sense that clinging to the past so strongly is slightly ridiculous. Walking through the city the idea that history should be respected and valued with such vigour, maintained in essentially its original exterior form was odd. How are we supposed to use it? -- to look at the streetscape and imagine that people walked around in robes and hats and knee-high socks? To do so would be nearly impossible. The distance between contemporary society and 1300 (or whatever) when Oxford U. was founded made the whole city seem absurd.

This foolish idea of mine fell away while walking its streets, walking towards destinations -- to class, to a restaurant, to a cinema, to a park, to Tesco. That the city's activities happen to occupy ancient structures is the important part, not how the structures occupy their denizens. In colleges here, as my professor said, students have been sitting in the same rooms, soaking with sweat the same chair bottoms that their predecessors in 1300 (or whatever) did. It is Oxford as a living space, organized around and in old buildings, that creates the sense of continuity and tradition, not the material urban fabric.

So I learned to appreciate Oxford.