Christ Church and English Ale

Today Tyler and I went to Christ Church, the largest of the Oxford colleges. It also happens to be the college where a decent portion of Harry Potter was filmed or at least based on - the dining hall and staircase are nearly exact (well minus the magic and such). It's quite pretty to walk around and see the gorgeous college and I took quite a bit of pictures, some of which are below. After that we did a bit of a "pub crawl" and I tried my first real English ale (served at room temperature and non-carbonated of course) which, to be honest, was quite terrible. Tyler tells me I'll learn to like it but I beg to differ - it was rather bad. We then headed to a second pub, the Lamb and Flag, and I tried my first cider, I rather enjoy cider. So in a nutshell I tried the two main English "beers" today and enjoyed one while I hated the other.

Before heading to Christ Church and such we did head to Summertown which is about a 5 minute walk from Spencer House. In Summertown you'll find many shops and restaurants - we headed to a couple of grocery stores and the Wine Rack. The grocery stores are quite interesting in that they feature many prepared items that you merely finish at home. Yes, we have many of these types of items in the U.S. but they take up a few aisles here. There's also quite a bit more of what would be considered ethnic food in the states in the normal grocery store here. Wine isn't necessarily cheaper here but you do indeed get a bit more "bang for your buck" as you tend to get higher quality wine for cheap. After my first few grocery store experiences we rode the bus into town to head to Christ Church - the bus isn't exactly cheap here. A one way ride into town is 1.80 British Pounds which is about 2.70USD, and that was about a 5 minute ride - needless to say, I'll be walking most of the time.

You can view photos from Christ Church here as well as a few below.