My last day in Oxford started early, well around 9ish, so early for me. We got to go to breakfast, though we caught the end of it. No big deal, there was food, though the tea was cold. Oh well.
After breakfast, we went to find Tolkien's grave. This was something we both were interested in doing, and we thought at first we would not be able to, the buses didn't go there, or they went at weird times. However, the bus leaves every like 5 minutes, and goes right to the cemetery. It was great. So we got on the bus, and it was great because Monica had not been been up this way yet. There is really no need, it's more of a residential area. But we had a purpose this day. I want to say we were on this bus for like 10-15 minutes, and then we saw our stop. The bus let us out right by the cemetery... it was great. We entered, and at the entrance there was a sign for J.R.R Tolkien Author with an arrow. Monica commented that she didn't know his last name was author. We followed these signs though, there was one every two feet, like those trying to find the grave are idiots or something. But we did find it, and it was nice.
The theme of this little trip was coming full circle, and I never felt that we came more of a full circle than here at Tolkien's grave. I remember when we first talked about coming to England, back in oh high school, we thought it would be amazing just to see Oxford, go to The Eagle and Child, and seeing his grave. Monica of course always wanted to go to school in Oxford, but I just wanted to see the city. And then we both applied to schools in England, we got in, and we got to see Oxford. We then went to The Eagle and Child, we ate there, and saw Tolkien's houses, and Pembroke where he went to school, and Merton where he taught. Now in the last time at Oxford, we saw his grave. Full circle. It was a good experience.
After that we headed back to the centre of town, and tried to go to Magdalen College, but it was closed to visitors until 1pm. So we walked around, saw Merton College where Tolkien taught. We then went to this really interesting but disorganised museum. It's the Pitts Museum, and it's basically these old guys donated their collections to this museum, and they just threw it into this room. Lamps were next to torture devices... the usual. The guide says there is a method to the order of the museum, but I do not see it. There was shrunken heads, and directions about how to make one. Interesting. We were there for a little bit, laughing at the order of everything, and just what was there. Random stuff.
We saw Keble College next, and went in search of lunch. We thought about going to the Lamb and Flag, a pub that Tolkien and his friends went to, but no one was in there, so we figured out that they didn't serve lunch. Next to The Eagle and Child was a bakery/sandwich place, so we got food there. I had tuna with cucumbers on it... what cucumbers are doing on tuna I have no idea, but it was good.
We went back to Magdalen College then, and wow. It's a very impressive college, but my favourite part was the walk we did. Lewis and Tolkien did this walk, and they call it Addison's Walk. Apparently it's named after someone, but I don't really know the story. All I do know is I walked in the footsteps of Tolkien and Lewis. It's basically where they talked about their books and religion. It was so peaceful. It was right around where we punted the day before. We walked, and talked, and just listened. There was no noise, well one noise, a humming annoying one, but as we continued the walk we didn't hear it again. It was quite a walk, I would do that walk everyday if I was in Oxford.
After Magdalen College, we went back to St. Peters, it was the middle of the afternoon, and I decided it was time to go. I thought Monica's paper was due Friday, but no the next day at noon, and she hadn't even finished reading the book. I figured I should get going, and let her work. We had also been everywhere, and seen it all. We did so much in the time I was there. I was pretty impressed with us.
But that was Oxford. It was so much fun, and I'm going to miss it.
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