Arthur's Blog: I Am Having the Time of My Life at a Vacation Activity That Fills Some People With Dread

An elderly gentleman in black bowler hat and formal black suit stood guard at the gates of the 16th century structure to which I had been directed. "I'm here to register for my classes," I told him.
"Jolly good," he responded.
And I am not making this up. He actually answered: "Jolly good."
I arrived yesterday morning (Sunday) in Oxford, England, to attend the "Oxford Experience" for a week at Christ Church College, studying Virginia Woolf and her Circle, for which I had read in advance (as directed by the school's faulty) Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, E.M. Forster's Howard's End, and Katherine Mansfield's Bliss and Other Short Stories. By noon of the same day, I registered, dropped off luggage at my room, met my "scout" (who will make the bed and clean the room each day), and enjoyed my first meal in the towering medieval hall where Harry Potter and his classmates took their own meals (and listened to various pronouncements) in the movie that all of us saw.
And yes, it was the very same long Gothic hall filmed in the movie. Above us, on elaborately decorated stone walls, were solemn oil portraits of various British greats who, to my disappointment, were motionless in their paintings' frames and did not cavort about, as in the movie. Drat!
All in all, I am having the kind of travel experience of which too many Americans dream but fail to enjoy because of their unwillingness to sign up for a learning vacation. Oxford's summer program provides a key example, at an affordable price and easily booked. What a pity that so many people are too lacking in the slight initiative to learn about and then to book this long-established program.
I'll blog a bit tomorrow about the first day's classes. And if you'd like a foretaste of next summer's program, simply read up online about the Oxford Experience.