Oxford

On our final day in England, we decided to do a day trip out to Oxford. We opted to take the train instead of a guided tour, which I think was a good choice. I wasn't expecting too much from Oxford- I just thought it would be a pretty college campus- but it ended up being amazing! It was like being in a Medieval Town. We took a walking tour through some of the many colleges that make up the University. We both geeked out at the various locations used for Harry Potter scenes (or at least the inspiration for them). Here's a bunch of pictures:

Cloisters in New College. On the right is the big tree under which Draco gets turned into a ferret:

At the tour guide's suggestion, we got lunch in a little hole-in-the-wall place called Turf Tavern. You definitely had to know where to look, since it's not really on a street:

We got some excellent and strange beers, and had some tasty English food (only slightly makes up for the generally crappy food everywhere else):

Next, we headed over to Christ Church, another college of Oxford that is also famous for it's Harry Potter stuff. The man at the entrance was this strange but awesome old guy who told us that "None of this is real. I'm not even real!" The place was gorgeous, although the lack of sunlight means that pictures didn't come out so great:

The Great Hall, upon which the Hogwarts Great Hall is based:

After that, we trekked back to London and our hostel. We contemplated seeing the new HP film, but the 12 GBP (about $19) price discouraged us. Instead, we had a nice big Indian meal (something London does very well) and called it a night at a reasonable hour. We stayed in a dorm-style room for our final night, but I went to bed before the roommates got back from partying and whatnot.

In the morning, I started my journey back to Istanbul, once again traveling through Bulgaria. Everything went remarkably well- I got into Varna on time and spent a really nice couple of hours in a nearby mall and fancy restaurant. Everything was so cheap! Compared to London, almost everywhere is cheap. I got back to Istanbul safely (no passport problems this time!) and went back to my semi-normal life in Turkey.

Also, I updated my last post with some pub crawl pictures supplied by Bryan. Take a look!