Oxfordia: Now is the month of maying--

On the first of May, Oxford goes into an intense spring-induced frenzy. People jump off bridges, children sing from towers at crazy o'clock in the morning, and men don bells on their legs and dance about with sticks. Naturally.

Intrigued by tales of Oxonian Mayday celebrations, some friends and I woke up at 4:30 in the morning and trekked down to the high street, where a choir sang from the top of Magdalen (pronounced maudlin) tower at 6am.

The streets were PACKED with people. Magdalen bridge was closed off because it's apparently a tradition to jump off into the too-shallow waters below, leaving people (usually drunk) and broken in a river. The police weren't entirely successful in their attempts to curtail this behavior, and we heard that a few men in tuxedos made it into the river. Because really, old chap, if one is going to dive into the Thames at 6am whilst inebriated, one must wear one's river-diving tuxedo.

Here's the lovely sunrise over Magdalen tower. If you squint you might be able to see the children singing.

Then it was time for the Mayday breakfast at Kellogg!

After a few hours of post-breakfast naptime, we found some Morris dancers in our neighborhood. Old british men don funny hats, bells on their legs, and clunky shoes, then dance about with handkerchiefs and sticks.

Then there was a tree-man that they danced around.

This fellow enjoyed his conversation with the shrubbery.

Here's a video of some of the Morris dancing--

As you can see in the video, the tree-man doesn't actually participate in the dancing or move in any way, so why exactly the tree needed to be a person and not just a bit of leaves tied together in tree form is beyond me...