Oxford or Hogwarts? Our UCSD Excursion at University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a magical place to visit. It’s not only magical because it was a frequent filming location for the Harry Potter films, but also because it encompasses articulate history and beauty around every corner. During our day’s excursion, our Revelle in London seminar had lots of fun.

Our Tour of Oxford with Debbie

            Our day kicked off by roaming around the vast campus guided by our spunky tour guide, Debbie. She taught us one important lesson while exploring Oxford: always look UP! The architecture of the buildings is phenomenal, and many of the ornate details are missed because people have tunnel vision. Visitors choose to look at what is in front of their eyes at street level. For the rest of the day, we always looked up to ensure we didn’t miss amazing sculptures and art.

            Debbie made our experience of Oxford even better with her energetic presence. Debbie has been a tour guide in Oxford for 25 years, so she shared her many stories with us. She has met famous visitors like the cast of Harry Potter and Prince Charles. She explained not only the features in Oxford, but also knew rich details and history along every stop on our tour.

            Some features of our tour included the Bodleian library, Radcliffe Camera, St. Mary’s Passage (which featured an homage to C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia,) the inside market, Jesus College, J.R.R. Tolkien’s bedroom window, and more.

The Revelle in London group in front of Radcliffe's Camera

Look up!

Jesus College

St. Mary's Passage, which features a homage to C.S. Lewis (who taught at Oxford) with a statue of Mr. Tumnus and a Narnian style lamp post.

Punting with UCSD: It’s a Miracle that Nobody Fell into River Thames

            Next, our class voted to punt along River Thames. Punting is a type of boating activity done in a shallow river. Four people sit in a flat, wooden boat while one person propels the boat. They do this by standing on the end of the boat and using a long pole to push against the river bottom. In this case, our classmates were the ones who used poles to steer the boat. Needless to say, our punters had no experience and we almost capsized numerous times. Punting was an infinitely entertaining mess, and we all laughed for nearly an hour on River Thames.  

Revelle Nerds in their Natural Habitat at the History of Science Museum in Oxford

            It was inevitable that the STEM nerds of UCSD would want to go see the History of Science Museum in Oxford. We reveled in the delight of original tools used in astronomy, physics, surgery, and more. The coolest highlight was the museum’s preservation of a blackboard used by Einstein while teaching at the University of Oxford. The blackboard has Einstein’s handwriting on it still, and it displays equations connecting to the age, size, and density of the universe.

Einstein's Blackboard, demonstrating the age, size and density of the universe.

Harry Potter Highlights

            As a Hufflepuff in her natural environment, I needed to record some important venues in Oxford pivotal to the creation of the Harry Potter series. J.K. Rowling used influence from Oxford as inspiration in her books. For example, the idea of Hogwarts houses came from the different colleges at Oxford. Also, students and faculty wear robes like the Harry Potter characters at Hogwarts. Here are a few pictures below of Harry Potter highlights throughout Oxford.

Film location for Harry Potter, they filmed hospital scenes from the films here and some dancing scenes

The library window at Hogwarts

Don't forget to look down for inspiration too! J.K. Rowling's original inspiration for Harry's scar next to the History of Science Museum 

I hope this post could illuminate a hint of the magic we discovered in Oxford. In fact, many of us loved Oxford so much that we kidded we would apply for graduate school. Who knows, maybe this excursion paved the future for one of our UCSD students. Oxford was breathtaking and our group experienced so much joy during this excursion.

-Kayleigh Roche