Origami Girl

Tuesday 22 April 2014

In which Oxford is explored


I had my first holiday of the year this last weekend and it was utterly wonderful. We took the Easter weekend to go away to Oxford, a city we've both only visited for conferences. Now I'm home I've definitely got that proper post-break feeling of refreshment.

I have been needing the time away from everything. I'd become bored of the Internet: Tumblr, Twitter, Blogger, and all the emails. So many emails. I'm sorry but I'd kind of had enough and all I wanted were river-side walks and some alone time with my husband. So we switched it all off. Didn't use my phone or computer (ok, so we watched a few episodes of Fairy Tail one evening but that hardly counts!)

Instead we managed to cram in everything we had been recommended to see in Oxford in just three days. We went to the covered markets, the Ashmolean (Britain's oldest museum), The Natural History Museum (Dinosaurs!), and the Pitt Rivers Museum (a big jumble of art), the canal, the river, the board games cafe, the theatre, and lots of nice food. And saw a Stradivarius guitar and violin which blew my mind.

I wanted to share a huge variety of pictures but it turns out despite coming back with 400 pictures, most of them are of skeletons (Natural History Museum) or of me (for soon to come outfit posts)!



 We visited a board game cafe called The Thirsty Meeples. You may have picked up a vibe from this blog that I quite like gaming. I am a member of a local board games club and have a fairly hefty mountain of games in the living room. This place has 1500 games in the cafe to choose from to play whilst you are there!
We took the game 'Fantastiqa' from the two-player section and did that with our lunch on the first day!


All the game pieces for this game were from famous works of art.
 
Oxford Castle at sunset
 On the first evening we found this free table tennis game in an open courtyard. The bats and ball were in little free to use pockets and we spent a good half an hour of me thrashing Andy at the game.

Pink lemonade floats
Hot Cross Bun bread and butter pudding, and the best cheesecake we've ever tasted.
 So probably the thing I was keenest to go to was to see all the dinosaur skeletons at the Natural History Museum. It is everything a picture book museum should be. Full of kids running round and staring at the giant t-rex, glass cases full of dead beetles and displays of historically important rocks.
T-rex!
We liked this statue of Newton having a little nap here.



Crazy ancestor of the elephant called the Deinotherium (which is not an easy name to remember). They had downward facing tusks, and in the sketches of how they might have looked, seem utterly terrifying.

This fairy normal looking rock is one of the oldest things on the planet. 3.5 billion years old!
Dinosaurs!
The inspiration for Lewis Caroll's Dodo in Through the Looking Glass

Unitkitty and Snail enjoying the canal side walk


So that was my Easter break! It was just really nice to have some exploring time with my husband. It was the first time we had been away with just the two of us since the honeymoon so it was good to relive that kind of peaceful joy together.

What did you do with Easter? Hope you had a good time too!

11 comments:

  1. Beautiful pictures! Oxford seems to be a very interesting place, the food looks delicious and I love that game because you can learn from it. Great post!

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  2. Wow, that's a damn cool Easter break!!!! I've been wanting to play some board games for a while now, but can't decide on which one, they're just so many! :D
    I know what you mean about wanting to just leave everything and have a break. I've been feeling the same lately.
    Have I mentioned that I loove your pixie? :D

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  3. this place is so magic, it has such lovely atmosphere <3
    http://coeursdefoxes.blogspot.com/

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  4. I'm so glad you enjoyed it all, especially the board game cafe! I'm also gutted though that I wasn't here :( You shall have to visit again soon and then we could our choice of 4 player games! The Natural History Museum is AMAZING isn't it. I wasn't expecting to be so inspired but there was so much stuff there that just looked so bizarre and weird it got my mind thinking of all these weird ideas. I haven't managed to get to the Pitt Rivers yet but it's next on the list!
    Also, can I please just ask where that rather incredible looking food was from? I want to go!

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    1. OOh I think it was called 'Bills'. Down a side street from the main shopping street that runs parallel with the Methodist church with the big spire. If you go to that church and go up you'll find it. There was a pub with the word 'goats' in the name and the restaurant was opposite. Hope those directions work because the food was amazing!

      Yeah I loved the Natural History Museum. The huge stuffed turtle was another awesome thing there, and so many more.

      We will have to do it again and see you next time!

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  5. Oh my goodness! So many amazing things in one post! I LOVE your photos of the skeletons - so cool! And no fair making me drool over all those amazing looking desserts! Yum!

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  6. You look like you had a wonderful Easter. Oxford is beautiful! My friend did his philosophy degree there! Love those tights on you.

    Had no idea you were on twitter either. Just followed you!

    Halima

    x

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  7. Lovely photos. I'm very pleased to see my game Fantastiqa as part of your Oxford trip! Thanks for playing and sharing. I was in Oxford less than a year ago, but I haven't been to the Thirsty Meeples yet!

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  8. You were in Oxford! And I wasn't... I think we may have almost crossed in our separate exit and re-entry directions as I got back on Easter Mon afternoon. So pleased you had such a great time. Lots of my favorite places featured here, as well as others I've yet to visit. And glad to see that Unitkitty and snail came along for the ride! I'm looking forward to a bit of time before the start of the autumn term when I can enjoy the city just for its own sake, before the onslaught of deadlines and essays and frantic work begins over again.

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  9. Wow. Oxford looks really, really fun. The board game cafe seems great, and who says no to a dino? There's one near here that will sometimes take groups out to near by digs after touring the museum, which is pretty cool.

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