Last week the three of us took the train up to Oxford. We stayed in the Visiting Fellow’s snug one bedroom apartment at Corpus Christi College, curling up in front of the fireplace during the crisp cold evenings. Early on Thursday morning we had a tour guide from Oxbridge tours take us on a personalised walk through the colleges. It was really fascinating, so different compared to my university experience in Australia, from the climate to the buildings to to the admission procedure to the academic structures.

Our guide Jonathan emphasised that Oxford is more a collection of colleges rather than a single unified entitiy. A student must be accepted into a specific college to take classes. Although the lectures and the final exams are shared between all students, the individual tuition and tutors are each determined by the college of the student. There are large and small colleges, right-wing and left-wing, modern and ancient. As I read through the history book that was left in our apartment, I learnt that Corpus Christi College was founded in 1352. New rules in 1573 required that Latin was spoken at all times, on the pain of being beaten at the buttery hatch. In 1906, in order to bring in more funding, the admittance policy is broadened to include lay students, not just clergy. In 1960 women were allowed into the college to dine, and in 1983 the college admitted its first female matriculates, causing quite a furore.

Jonathan told us of some of the hundreds of academic traditions. Academic dress is worn during dinners, during exams, during chappel, during progress reports, and during formal lectures. Students are often given a white carnation by friends to wear in their buttonhole for their first exam and a red for the final exam of the semester. If one does very well during ones exams, one wears a fancier academic dress the next semester. Interestingly, we were told that when professors attend graduation ceremonies, they wear the academic dress of Oxford, not of their alma mater, a practise that is very different from most everywhere else.

I was scolded by a custodian for entering Christ Church through the exit, and ate at The Bear on Bear Lane. We visited The Eagle and Child pub where J. R. R. “Tollers” Tolkien, C. S. “Jack” Lewis, and other members of the Inklings read their work out loud to each other. We had lunch at the Turf Tavern, where Australian ex-Prime Minister and Rhodes Scholar set the 1953 world record for drinking a yard glass (1.4 litres) of ale in 11 seconds. We finished up of exploration of Oxford by walking through many of the areas used in the filming of Harry Potter, including the grand stair-well, the dining room, and the the cloisters at New College where an ersatz Mad Eye Moody transfigured Draco Malfoy into a ferret.

When Hayden’s parrain JT flew over from NYC, we took him to the quirky towns of Dutch Baarle-Nassau and Belgian Baarle-Haartog, all tangled up within each other like a jigsaw puzzle. Located across the Dutch border, twenty Belgian exclaves can be found here, with seven Dutch exclaves within the Belgian exclaves. This meant that Hayden could stand with one foot in the Netherlands and one foot in Belgium:

There is a “front door rule” that means that the position of the front door determines whether a house is classified as being in Belgium or the Netherlands. The nationality of the home is also indicated by a flag next to the house number. We visited the house in which the border goes straight through the middle of the door, and thus has two addresses (and two doorbells):

Loveren 2
2387 Baarle-Hertog
Belgium

and

Loveren 19
5111 Baarle-Nassau
The Netherlands

There was even a divisive border across my lunch, separating the savoury cheese and potato pancake from the sweet cherry crepe. I ate each in isolation and they were delicious.

Plus, JT hand-delivered to us a delicious Black & White cookie, all the way from New York City. Hayden is still too little, so I ate it for him.

Our last day in Indonesia was Elephant Day. In the morning we went to the Bintan Elephant Park. We watched the elephants perform some impressive tricks (although they weren’t particularly good at soccer or mathematics). While waiting to line up for some elephant rides, I spent some time chatting to one of the handlers (bull men?). He also had a young child about Hayden’s age, who also was not sleeping through the night. I asked him if his son had ridden an elephant yet, but he said that the park was a 35 minute ride on a motorbike from his home, and that was not safe for a baby. I also asked him if he wanted his son to work with elephants when he got older, and the answer I received was an emphatic “no”.

When it was our time to ride the elephants, Hayden had fallen fast asleep. I think he liked the gentle bumping along the jungle paths while snuggled up against Adrian’s chest. I was told that my elephant was extra tall because his mother was Sumatran while his father was from Thailand. The two elephant handlers were really kind to us, taking a lot of extra time to line up the two animals, and then even hopping off to take some great shots. I was really impressed with their consideration and patience.

We also met a yellow python – Hayden’s second snake experience – though we didn’t let it get too close to him, as those strong muscles aren’t just for show. Hayden also slept through this encounter.

In the afternoon, Milly from the elephant park visited the hotel. I watched her give short rides to all the kids, and took photos for many families as they made a short circuit around the grass. Once the queue had vanished, the handler let me meet Milly and feed her tiny Indonesian bananas. She was very patient, stretching out her mottled pink and grey trunk and waiting for me to place the fruit in her finger-like projection. She never grabbed the banana from my hand, though she did snortle and sniff at me thoroughly after each one to see if any more were waiting for her. After stroking her hairy trunk I said good-bye and thanked her for being such a gentle and delightful creature.

Today we spent the whole day at Club Med Bintan Indonesia. We started the day with a nature walk through the thick jungle that surrounds the resort. We spotted a wild silver-leaf monkey, a centipede, and some carnivorous pitcher plants.

At lunch we let Hayden play with a few more foods. He can now pick them up and wave them around, and sometimes he will almost accidentally shove them into his mouth, but he really doesn’t seem that interested in eating and seems quite happy with his liquid diet.

We have been eating so much fresh fruit here – pineapple, watermelon, dragon fruit, snake skin fruit, guava, coconut – for every meal it’s freshly sliced and waiting for us in abundance. Hayden gummed on some coconut but didn’t seem particularly impressed.

It was a little drizzly, which meant that some activities were cancelled, a great excuse to curl up with Hayden and read our books while sipping on some cocktails. Hayden modelled the seahorse t-shirt that I painted for him the day before. Even though I chose an extra-small shirt, it is too big and he looks a little like an American footballer. Poor little bear is even too small for the Petite Club.

In some ways this place is very baby-friendly. They have plenty of high-chairs and changing stations with Johnson & Johnson products, and the buffet has a whole fridge full of pureed baby foods. We have a baby bath, a bottle warmer and steriliser in our room with more complementary baby skin care products on offer. However at 14 years old the resort is showing its age, as there are stairs everywhere and it is impossible to wheel the pram anywhere without assistance. We saw one little girl in a wheelchair, and she must be having a very difficult time getting around.

Overall we have enjoyed our time here. During monsoon season the beach and the weather are not spectacular, but it is warm and relaxing and a great excuse to spend some quality time together. Tomorrow we catch the ferry back to Singapore and the next day we fly back home.