The Bystander Blog

Christmas in Oxford November 29, 2010

The title of the post today is a little misleading.  We’ve really been in Christmas season, as far as retail stores are concerned at least, since after Guy Fawkes day (Nov. 5th).  There’s no such thing as Thanksgiving over here, so there’s also no buffer holiday between Halloween season and Christmas.

Although it’s pretty cold, there’s also no snow on the ground yet.  But not to worry–I’m sure I’ll be seeing snow as soon as I get my feet back on American soil.  So while some of the west coast people around here are praying to see some snow before they leave, I’m not complaining.

Anyway, last Friday there was a big Christmas celebration all over downtown Oxford.  Here’s some of the photos I grabbed.

The light parade going down the street

Night Before Christmas?

Baileys/Chocolate Brandy stand

The Oxford Christmas tree

Cornmarket Street all lit up and pretty

A little park area just down the street from where I'm living

In addition, a lot of buildings were opened up longer than usual.  A couple weeks ago, I posted a photo of the Divinity School (at the Bodleian Library), which was the set for the infirmary and some other scenes from the Harry Potter movies.  Well, this week we got to go inside again.

Look familiar?

Connected to the Divinity School is a room that was used for Parliament during the English Civil War.  It’s also the room where I got sworn in to the Bodleian Library.

This is kind of what the actual Parliament looks like too. Notice the benches on the left and right facing each other--politics is more dual-party and adversarial here than in America, if you can believe it.

This is Week 8 of the actual Oxford term.  Research papers are due this week, along with the normal tutorials and stuff.  One more week of Oxford classes, then one more week to wrap up some more stuff, then I’m home.  Until now, it didn’t really feel like I was close to being done, because I wasn’t.  Until now, I was so busy with my research that I hardly had time to think about going back home.  But now that most of it is done, I can finally see a light at the end of the tunnel.  Home soon, looking forward to it, but I’ll always have left a piece of myself here.