Pix! Encore!

Anna, you asked for pictures, so here are pictures :D

Instead of sleeping in like a good girl (and like all the rest of the city), I decided to bounce out of bed at an ungodly hour and roam around in the fog.

First, we have a terrible, terrible photo of the Randolph Hotel. Big ol' fancy place, with Mercedes -es and BMWs constantly pulling up in front. When I become rich and famous, I am going to spend a month in Oxford, just to enjoy the luxury of saying I stayed at the Randolph.

Next a photo of the inside of the Fellows' gardens at Balliol College. Lord Peter's college, for those of you who don't know. MY Peter. I wasn't supposed to be in there (I'm not a Fellow! oops!) but I didn't see the sign until after I had taken the photo, so I'm pleading the fifth. Ignorance is not an excuse, and they don't even have a written Constitution over here, but ... oh well! So sue me!

These are the famous blue gates of Trinity College - from the inside. I knocked, and they opened to me. And from the gates, you can look down the loooong lawn (which, frankly, looks terrible when covered in frost, but I'm sure looks absolutely splendid in the summer) to see one of the college buildings. Beautiful old architecture; I love it!

Outside the door of Balliol, out in the middle of Broad Street, stands a marvelous Christmas tree, sent to the college by ... some Norwegian prince, I guess? Not sure; my connection to the grapevine is rather staticky. But it's a nice tree.

And on our right, we have the Sheldonian Theatre. I still have not been inside ... another excursion for this week! And surrounding it, a fence with very strange men's heads poking up and staring down at you. I don't know how strange the men were, but their heads rather ... well, they turn heads.

(sorry, that photo came out at the top. Wasn't supposed to do that ...!)

And last but not least, Blackwell's. The most brilliant bookstore in the world. Five floors of nothing but BOOKS. Me + Blackwell's = match made in heaven ... but *sigh* too good to last ...

And now, for something completely different:

I think I'm going to take a nap.