The Hallifordian - 2016-2017

46 us round was a real benefit as he offered up inter- esting facts about each place during our visits. We hadn’t explored too much by this point, but a caf- feine refuel was already required so we took a brief break in the café above Blackwell’s, resulting in us somehow losing half our group, and after we were all back together, it was off towards the colleges. Mr Parsons took us on a walking tour of the colleges right out on the edge of the city such as Merton and Magdalen, as well as taking a moment to show us the buildings of the maths department (his department). This was followed by a second pub meal and a pleasant evening walk around Christ church meadow where some of us took the oppor- tunity to question Mr Parsons about the admissions process while others in the group decided to chase the local squirrels up trees. By the time we got to the youth hostel, we were exhausted after a day of walking so sleep quick- ly followed but we were up again at 5:30am thanks in part to the announcements from the train platform about ten metres outside our window. Regardless of why we were awake, there was no chance of going back to sleep so we went out for a morning walk (or jog in Gareth’s case) before breakfast. Monday morning saw us heading out to book our tour at the Bodleian before Gareth and I left the rest of the group to go and look round Brase- nose College while we had a talk with a Professor in the Physics department. We were shown round the research labs and the Professor talked to us about the course at Oxford, very keenly answering all our questions and queries. The tour of the Bodleian Library came next and our enthusiastic guide made it a really en- joyable experience (not that it could have been any- thing other than enjoyable to be in a building filled with books). She had an amazing store of facts and seemingly an anecdote for every floorboard in the place. We split up after lunch to visit our own col- leges of preference although some of us stuck to- gether to get Luca to use his puppy-dog eyes to get us past the porter’s lodge. Overall, it was a great experience. I think everyone got the impression that it would be a love- ly place to work in as the university facilities are astounding but also because there’s so much more to Oxford than just a university. We were all very thankful to Mr Slocock for organising the trip and also to Mr Parsons for acting as our local expert. Jack Davey, Year 12 “Slugs” in Oxford! Gareth Hart, Helena Baglin, Alex Muir, Thomas Imperato, Luca Bertuzzi and Jack Davey.