A popular Oxford pass time, which I enjoy far more than the various alcohol binges, are exchange dinners (both normal and mini varieties).
Exchange dinners are normally between two colleges where each college in turn hosts the other for a formal dinner. Typically between 5-10 people from each college are involved and the same people are supposed to attend both dinners to develop friendships with people from other colleges. However, that is rarely how it actually goes down.
Usually you end of having dinner with a complete stranger who has a 50:50 chance of studying anything at all similar to you, so that you could talk about that. The other half of the time you end up having some vague discussion about how much you like Oxford or where you come from. Many colleges have a special room for special events which are used for exchange dinners so you don't actually get to see the main Hall. Exchange dinners also always end with drinks back in the Common room.
Better than the standard exchange dinner is the mini-exchange dinner. Mini-exchange dinners are usually restricted to a special group, such as a scholarship program or a department, and involve less than 10 people total. One or two members will offer an open invitation for the maximum number of guests they are allowed to bring, often they will team up to offer more spaces. Thus you get to sit in the main formal Hall. Because the dinner is restricted to a group generally you have more in common with the other guests and conversation flows much better. If you already know one of the other guests or you have two hosts who know each other it makes for quite a good dinner.
Tonight along with a mini-exchange dinner there was a bar-exchange which follows the same idea as the exchange dinners but rather than dinner you go to the other college's bar for a drink. This is a new concept which I hope will take off because you can easily visit both college bars in a single night rather than spread the event over several weeks, you also needn't worry about the variable quality of college food or the infrequency of some colleges' formal halls.
