Natural History and Brownies

Today I woke up and things were quite different from usual, not bad, just different. I got up at 9 am, took a shower, ate breakfast and just puttered around. At 11 am I went to see if my flatmates were awake. Caitlin opened her door and said that she was just getting up. It was only then that I remembered that Amy had gone to London yesterday to meet up with her parents and Libby had left early this morning to go to Scotland with her parents. So, it is just Caitlin and me in the flat this weekend. It is strange because the four of us have been almost constant companions for the past (almost) two months.

Earlier in the week Caitlin and I had already planned to do some exploring in Oxford over the weekend since it would just be the two of us. Our choices were the Botanic Gardens and/or the Pitt Rivers Museum. We did not decide where we were going until this morning when we checked the weather and it was only supposed to be a high of 48 degrees Fahrenheit. That is almost a 10 degree drop from yesterday and it is supposed to continue to be that cold for at least the next week. The weather here is finally turning frigid, and I am very glad I bought a coat at Primark on Wednesday (it is wine colored with scalloped detail and I absolutley love it).

The Pitt Rivers Museum is in a part of Oxford north of High Street where we had not yet explored. We walked along a two lane road that had a lot of cars, since I guess that area is not considered the City Centre (only buses, bikes and taxis are allowed in the City Centre during the day). The sidewalk was incredibly crowded, mostly with university students who were probably head to or from class as most of the buildings lining the road appeared to be more colleges of Oxford University.

After a bit of confusion about the signs to Pitt Rivers (one sign pointed left but I was positive it was supposed to be on the right. The first sign ended up being for parking for the museum), we made it to the museum. You walk in through a heavy wooden door and the first things you see are giant dinosaur skeletons. I was surrounded by bones and fossils and rocks. If I could have visited this museum at around age 7-11 I would have been in absolute heaven. During that time I changed back and forth from wanted to be an Egyptologist, archeologist, paleontologist and geologist. I collected fossils and rocks and they were my prized possessions.

Even at my current age I was positively giddy. A lot of the displays were designed to be touched. There were stuffed animals like a fox, pheasant, badger, and cheetah that visitors can pet. One adorable little girl with blond curls ran up to the stuffed Shetland pony saying in her British accent, "Look, Mummy, a Shetland pony. It's a Shetland pony." Little children with British accents just make me "Awww" in my head because they are so cute.

Caitlin and I slowly made our way around the room looking at all of the displays about rocks, dinosaurs, modern animals, and insects. I also took some time to appreciate the architecture. The glass ceiling stretched overhead, two stories up. It is all held up by carved granite columns and a diamond shaped weaving of metal supports.

The Pitt Rivers Museum is actually where Lewis Carroll, who lived in Oxford and lectured at Christ Church, got a lot of ideas for Alice in Wonderland. The museum has an entire display case with all of the animals featured in the stories, birds, lizards, and even a white rabbit. The Dodo bird has its own case with a skeleton of a Dodo and a model of what it would have looked like. I learned that Dodo birds are not naturally the large, round and clumsy animals that they are normally thought of as. In reality, the Dodos that were kept in captivity were given the wrong food so they grew obese.

In a separate room there is the collection of cultural artifacts. The room is three stories tall and filled to the brim with all manner of things from cultures around the world. There is pottery, clothing, model ships, musical instruments, models of traditional homes, woven baskets, oil lamps and much more. Caitlin and I played a little game of trying to guess what country, or at least what continent, the various pieces came from. There is so much to see that it would take days, if not weeks, to see it all.

It was amazing to see how similar items were that were from cultures on the other side of the world from each other. Many cultures use horns to communicate and create music. Many ended up with the same style of oil lamp, probably because the shape was the most efficient. It was like this one room showed how interconnected all people of the world are. All human beings are the same regardless of skin color or ethnicity.  In that room I felt, not like an American or a caucasian female, but simply a member off the human race, connect to everyone else in some way, past and present.

Before even finishing the ground floor, Caitlin and I both started to get hungry so we decided to visit the museum again another day (entry is free). We ended up at the Covered Market on High Street and chose to eat baguettes at Morton. The goat cheese on Caitlin's baguette reminded me of our four hour long study abroad orientation in May. That orientation was so long ago now, and the most memorable part was the snacks. Those snacks included goat cheese, crackers, fruit and brownies. One thought led to another, and suddenly I was craving brownies.

I knew that we had all of the ingredients to make brownies except for cocoa powder so I thought this would be a good opportunity for Caitlin to show me the Tesco she had found a ways down Cornmarket Street when she explored Oxford by herself the other day. The Cornmarket Tesco is not as spread out as the one on Cowley Road, instead it has two floors. We had to look in several places before we found the cocoa powder in the section with the coffee, tea and hot cocoa. With our last ingredient in hand, we headed back to the dorm.

The walk back was uneventful. The narrow trail from Pullen's Lane to our dorm, passes by the nursery, an area of land where people can plant gardens and vegetables. Today, someone was burning wood or leaves in a bonfire and the air held its earthy, burning smell. I knew that if I stopped and closed my eyes I would be able to perfectly picture myself standing outside my home in North Carolina, surrounded by tree draped in fiery hues. The brisk wind of Autumn and the smell of wood fires are two things that go perfectly together in my memories.

Back at the dorm we started baking our brownies. It was not difficult at all, just mixing a few ingredients together then pouring it into a pan. I waited the required time, 25-30 minutes, but the bottom was still gooey while the top seemed cooked. This seems to happen every time I have tried to bake here. The oven, which is super tiny, doesn't seem to cook the bottoms of things properly. We ended up cooking the brownies for an extra 15 minutes and I think they ended up a bit over cooked. However, they were still delicious and satisfied my brownie craving. We probably will get used to how the oven just in time for us to leave, but that is just the way things go sometimes.