Oxford is a place of imagination...

Oxford, despite primarily being known for its University, is a beautiful town. When you walk along its streets you can feel history oozing out of the stone walls of the buildings. It is as if at any moment you could find yourself in an intellectual conversation with pretty much any famous philosopher or author you could think of. For example, when stepping into the ironically titled The Eagle and Child pub, you can almost hear J.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis brainstorming their character's newest magical adventures. It is not hard to imagine them sitting in dark corners of the pub, that they both frequented, coming up with worlds that only they could envision.

After leaving The Eagle and Child you can walk a mere ten minutes and find yourself in a shop entirely dedicated to Alice in Wonderland (whose creator also tread through the streets of Oxford). Just cross the street and you are in the Great Hall of Hogwarts. The pictures talk and the owls swoop down (even if only in your imagination) and tables are all set for Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin students.

Aside from all of this there is the buzz of academia in the air. Students flutter about, lugging their boxes to their new dormitories for the beginning of term, chatting in coffee shops, and donning costumes to raise money for charity... that is right: costumes. If you had been at Oxford when I was, then you would have found yourself face to face with Disney's The Incredibles. A group of Oxford medical students wore skin tight superhero costumes in the icy weather to raise money for charity. They were competing against other groups from their department in a scavenger hunt. Pirates vs. The Incredibles; it was a face-off of the highest extreme. After speaking with The Incredibles two or three times and seeing them in various parts of Oxford campus and the town of Oxford, they asked us a favor. For their scavenger hunt they needed to fit a large group of people (themselves included) into a phone booth and get photographic proof. My students huddled in and The Incredibles climbed all over the phone booth. I took a photo to immortalize the occasion and The Incredibles thanked us. I asked them what they had left to do in their scavenger hunt and they told me that they needed to make a human pyramid and to swim in the river. The air was icy and I wished them good luck.

It seems that any one's imagination can come to life in Oxford. First J.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Lewis Carroll, and the set designers of Harry Potter's imaginations came to life in Oxford, and then mine popped into reality and climbed up onto a phone-booth.

Location: Oxford, England

I seem to have fallen down the Rabbit hole...

Donned as Dina, and in the company of two Alices, a deck of cards, and the Queen of Hearts, I fell through the rabbit hole (or the Tube, rather), and landed in Wonderland. After many stares and hushed comments, our oddly assembled party arrived at SIN's "ROCKCABARET Alice in Wonderland" event. The que was long and filled with mad hatters, white queens, cards, dodos, white rabbits, caterpillars, Alices, clocks, mock turtles, gryphons, and live flowers. The que was slow and everyone was impatient to get in.

After having my cat ears checked by security, I ascended the steps into Wonderland (apparently there was no falling down involved). In the center of the first room stood a large mushroom, that was about my height. Atop the mushroom lounged a caterpillar girl who glimmered in emerald radiance, her antennas sticking out in every direction. The disco ball flashed rainbow lights across the room. The air vibrated with sound and radiated into the nooks and crannies of the space. We found men in card suits walking on stilts and mice who handed us cupcakes.

As this all went on I was discreetly handed a white card, by whom, I do not know. The card stated that the first eighty people up the stairs would be in a photoshoot. The photographer was nuts... but then again, who isn't in Wonderland? The Cheshire Cat says that you've got to be mad to be there.

When we were back down the stairs we literally helped paint some white roses red while dancing with the stilted cards to the thumpa-thumpa of the music. The mad hatter slowly took off his clothes on stage to reveal that he was Alice. Alice slowly took off her clothes to reveal that she was actually the White Rabbit... then she did card tricks.

It was quite an interesting night, but we decided to step back through the looking glass.

Location: Sin, Tottenham Court Road, London, England