Clifton College Website

EFL Oxford Trip

We woke up at seven o'clock in the morning, as normal, and we had breakfast at Poole's because we had to leave at 7:45 to take the mini bus to go to Oxford. I had two pieces of toast so I could get energy for the journey but I had a little problem because during the two hours that the journey lasted for I felt really sick and I really wanted to vomit. However, when we got off the bus I felt much better!!

Aerial shot of Christ Church, Oxford

We arrived in Oxford around ten o’clock in the morning. It was a perfect summer's day - warm and sunny. We got off the minibus and we walked to Christ Church College to meet our guide who was going to give us a two hour tour. We went into the main entrance of Christ Church College... it is very strange because although it is one university, Oxford University is divided into 39 different colleges spread all around the small town of Oxford! In my opinion the college we visited (Christ Church) is the most beautiful. It is certainly one of the biggest. Christ Church College is famous because lots of bits of Harry Potter's movies were filmed there. Christ Church College also has a lot to do with Alice in Wonderland and many of the ideas for the book were taken from the college. The story of Alice was based on a real person called Alice. Her father went to Christ Church as well as the person who wrote Alice in Wonderland whose real name was Charles Dodgson and whose pen name was Lewis Carroll.

At Oxford University there are around 20,000 students within all the colleges. Our guide told us that a lot of British prime ministers had been to Oxford University, and that 13 of them had been students at Christ Church College so it's also quite famous because of that. The college was founded in the 16th century by a catholic called Cardinal Wolsey, but Henry VIII who was the King of England at the time, renamed the college King's College and later he refounded it as Christ Church College.

Christ Church, Oxford

After the guided tour we had our lunch in the centre of Oxford. I had a cheese sandwich and it was really nice after all the walking that we had done!! After lunch we went to a bookshop called Blackwell's and I bought a book that I really wanted to read, called "Looking for JJ".

Around one o'clock we went to the river (Isis) and we did the best part of the trip!! We went punting! We had such a good time doing it and some of us ended up a bit too wet, but in my opinion it was the best part of the trip! Learning how to punt could be a useful thing to know in the future, you never know!

After we had gone punting, we walked back to the mini bus to go back to school. On our way back to school Mr Royston decided to give a special treat for the boys by stopping at McDonald's - the boys had asked to go about a thousand times that day!! We eventually got back to school at about 5.45pm.

I think it was a really good trip and I really enjoyed it! I also learned a lot about Oxford and about punting. I think this trip should be repeated next year!

Monica Pereira Alonso 8DP

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