It's Oxonian, NOT Oxfordian

What I have learned at the one-month point

Image description: Left: Me on the left in a wheelchair, dark coat, gray scarf, jeans and brown Uggs, next to standing David, in cap, red shirt, and dark pants/jacket. We are on a rainy gray sidewalk in front of a Renaissance building with many archways. Right: Looking into a green courtyard, with a black tree in the foreground, a black wrought-iron fence ahead next to a second black tree, and beyond the fence, the side of another cream-colored Renaissance building.

As of Friday (Valentine’s Day! Which apparently means our neighbors blast Celine Dion at dinner time?), we have been in Oxford for a month. In that time, we have visited with two different UK-based friends a total of three times; hosted relatives; gone to London; eaten in restaurants or take-away (not take-out!) ten times (oof) not counting London; gone to two movies (The Brutalist and Hard Truths); and I have attended several Oxonian (not Oxfordian, as I keep wanting to say) events. I have learned that for a medieval city/university, Oxford is doing its part to be accessible, and that the buses are still the way to go instead of the metro/Underground (which doesn’t even exist in Oxford, but does in London).

A note about the Underground, which, it’s true, is more accessible than the Paris Mètro, though that’s a bit like saying Kensington Gardens are more accessible than Machu Picchu. The Paris Mètro was never intended to be used by people who can’t do stairs and therefore they have no real intention of installing 1.3 billion Euros-worth of elevators. Sure, it’s a bit of a fuck-you to those of us who can’t do stairs, but it’s the most beautiful city in the world, and we all know that I will forgive a LOT for beauty because I am shallow. The Underground, though, does try to accommodate folks like me, and if sometimes they do it in bonkers ways, I suppose I give them points for trying. We rode the Underground quite a bit when we were in London, and I have two observations. One: Accessible* always has that asterisk abroad. For example, at Paddington Underground Station, we really wanted to get on the eastbound Circle line. But the step-free way took us to the westbound platform and the only way across was via stairs. When we expressed dismay to the employee, he told us to get on the westbound one, go one stop to where it terminates, wait on the train, and after a couple minutes it would start going again, but east-bound! Magically accessible*.

Two: Young men in any country are sort of terrible. Sorry, #NotAllMen, #ButProbablyAllYoungMen. We got on the train at one point and the disability area, which is the only place to fit a wheelchair out of the aisle, had three people sitting it. The older gentleman offered to get up with his wife, but the young guy sitting IN THE SPACE where the wheelchair would actually go (and where there is a big, clearly worded, and highly visible sign saying “give up this seat if it’s needed for a wheelchair”) studiously ignored me. And the wheelchair insignia on the glass next to him. So I sat in the aisle and blocked everybody, including the youngster when he stood up to disembark, at which point two other young men who had been standing, took his seat. Womp womp. Honestly, I was happily sitting regardless, so they were really making things worse for everyone who had to squeeze by me, but still.

The window of a bus with a yellow rectangular sign on the left, and a brown square sign above a blue square sign on the right. All three give instructions for disabled riders.

I love London and even the Underground, but I was happy to get back to the buses in Oxford, where the signs say wheelchairs get priority even if you’re wheeling a baby around, which is as it should be because frankly, the baby was your decision.

And otherwise, I have immersed myself in Oxford. Our friend David visited from London; we all went to Quod for lunch (our third time!) because once you find a good and accessible restaurant, you want to go to it a lot. He went to Oxford as an undergrad, so showed us around his college (St. John’s, whose quad is pictured above) and then we went and poked around the Ashmolean Museum and looked at Egyptian mummies and Greek pottery (no repatriation angst here!).

We went to two talks this week, one on poetry at the Faculty of English and one (re)considering the avatars of liberalism and conservatism (Burke, Locke, and Smith) at the Rothermere American Institute. That was followed by a dinner at the High Table at Corpus, where all the Fellows including Michael wore gowns (I just flashed on all the men wearing ballgowns and am extremely tickled by this image), and the meal was begun and ended with a gavel bang and Latin benediction. Fascinating, and good food, too, though I wasn’t able to participate in Second Dessert, where the fellows adjourn upstairs (no lift), to eat chocolate and drink sherry. The students had basically all finished eating before we got there, so we presided over a mostly empty room. But I had a lovely conversation with an Economics professor, mostly about Australia, where he is from, and footy, which apparently folks from Sydney (like him) don’t really follow, unlike my brother-in-law and nephew, who are from Melbourne. He did tell me that, since no one plays Aussie footy outside of Australia, they occasionally partner with Gaelic football teams (a sport not played outside of Ireland, with equally bananas rules) and modify each so they can hold an international competition. I don’t know if this is actually true but I admire the ingenuity and the sense that they’re just making the rules up as they go.

Today we are welcoming more UK-based friends, this time from Bristol, and will mostly explore which restaurants will be able to accommodate both a wheelchair and a very pregnant person. Should be fun!