Don't Wake Me From This Golden Dream

My librarian flatmates have been in ecstasy the last two days.  We toured Oxford yesterday--complete with a tour of the Bodleian Library (opened to scholars in 1602), which reduced one of my classmates to tears.  It was actually amazing.  I was expecting to be bored, even has a history major and a Library Science graduate student, but it was truly beyond belief.  The original shelves and books are still there and still being used.  I learn how the books were so precious, they were chained to iron rods through the 1800's.  The history of the place, it's importance to academia, it's library innovations were all impressive.  The Bodleian acts a as a repository of books from throughout the world--the largest collection of Hebrew books outside of Israel and the largest collection of Sanskrit books outside of India.  Additionally, they receive, catalog, and put into storage between 4,000-6,000 new materials each week.

The Bridge of Sighs, viewed from the Bodleian.

Oxford University is made of up of 38 independent colleges organized under the over-arching University.  The different colleges are spread out around the center of town, each comprised of it's own buildings and its graduates feeling more loyal to it than to Oxford.  I studied at Mansfield College with a University of Nebraska program when I was an undergrad--just for part of  a summer, but I had to go back and see my old dorms and lecture hall.  That program was intellectually very stimulating, but not nearly as fun as my current study aboard!

Christchurch's Main Building 

 Christchurch College is perhaps the most famous of all the Oxford Colleges--it has produced an obscenely high number of Prime Ministers, writers, military leaders, and other powerful white men.  I think the guide could hear my jaw drop when she said women weren't permitted to live on campus until 1980.
Christchurch was insanely crowded with tourists yesterday because it was a filming site for the Harry Potter movies...

Pitbull hanging in the dining room.

And wouldn't you know, Pitbull showed up right as we were walking through the Christchurch dining hall, where the first Harry Potter dining hall scenes were filmed.  After awhile, they realized having a film crew in the hall where the students and staff actually eat three times a day wouldn't really work, so they built an exact, life-sized replica of the hall in a airplane hanger somewhere.

Story Creating machine. So cleverly crazy.

My favorite part of Oxford, besides running into Pitbull in the dining hall (I mean really, what could be better than that?!?!) was seeing a Golden Dream in the process of coming to fruition in the form of The Story Museum, the brain child an Oxford women who dreamt of a space to create literacy programs, based on oral skills like storytelling, for children to come to and broaden both their creativity and learning.  It has taken almost 10 years, but they have an amazing space they showed us around and are developing programming to serve the children of Oxford.  It is a paradox that it this town, with the best reputation in the world for education, the grade school system ranks in the lowest 10% for the entire nation.  The story  museum is tackling that through imaginative outreach and special programs.

Great Messenden.

 Today was a real contrast to Oxford.  We took another 45-minute train trip, but this time to the south, the town called Great Missenden.  It was so quiet, green, and picturesque that it looked like an English movie set.  Green, rolling hills, stone cottages with colorful doors, rose bushes everywhere, and a stone church over looking a cemetery on top of a hill

Could you imagine a more perfectly English country house?

In the cemetery, the grave of Roald Dahl, the beloved children's book author (Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the BFG). 


Great Missenden was our destination today because of the Golden Dream of a handful of people who were determined to create a museum, not just about Roald Dahl (who is immensely popular here) but of the whole creative process.  There are exhibits all about his fascinating life (he was a Royal Air Force fighter pilot in WWII) and his entire humble writing shed.  There are also all kids of dress-up clothes. art stations, writing prompts--and the museum was full of children enjoying all of the activities.

The other Golden Dream, the one that inspired me to use that expression tonight, was from a song in the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory musical we attending this evening.  Miguel took advantage of the availability of opera glasses!  It was an incredible visual production with stunning costumes and special effects.



There was a number, right when Charlie won the golden ticket, with the line, "don't wake me from this golden dream."  I thought, that is really appropriate.  Not only am I getting to live an almost dream-like experience, but the past two days I have seen that determination and effort, like that demonstrated in Oxford and Great Messenden, and by Roald Dahl in getting his stories published, and by the writers an producers of the show that is selling out in Covent Garden, causes great things to happen!