DAY TRIP #5

Wednesday 2/17
Day Trip #5 - Blenheim Palace and Oxford!

Today was amazing. First we visited Blenheim Palace, the grand home of many Dukes throughout the centuries and the birthplace of Winston Churchill. The palace was like a museum; of paintings, historical tapestries, royal furniture, and busts of famous heads. The palace was decorated beautifully, and the gardens outside were amazing and huge. Again, I wish it was Spring already! I've seen so many English gardens that are pretty, but i know will be fabulous once everything blooms. 

Next we drove to Oxford, which was fantastic. It’s a very old "college town" established in 1294. We were dropped off and given the afternoon to explore before taking a group tour of Christ Church College. A group of us went to Covered Market to the famous milkshake stand Moo Moo’s. There were over 200 hundred flavors so it was difficult to choose one… but I got a Toblerone candy milkshake. Delicious.

                    

We explored Oxford and i loved it all. We saw amazing old buildings and a massive bookshop that had quite a lot of books (it is Oxford..). I felt like a college town... but sophisticated, pretty, and very old.

After exploring (and finding an Oxford sweatshirt sale!) we met up with the rest of the class to tour Christ Church, a very old (almost 500 years old) college and cathedral. We saw an old library and toured the college grounds, which were gorgeous of course. Oxford University students are spoiled and lucky. There was pretty old architecture, big green private gardens, and very nice “student dorms” (more like beautiful buildings) and quite a few attractive Oxford man-students strolling about. I felt awkward trying to sneak pictures of them so I didn’t. :)

Lewis Carroll studied at Oxford (here at Christ Church) and it is supposed that the name Alice (..Wonderland) was based off of Alice, the Dean's daughter, and that this door was significant to him...

Here's a picture of our BYU program...

AND NEXT (mom – tell the Baker family!)… we walked through Christ Church, where many scenes from HARRY POTTER have been filmed! Needless to say this excited nearly all 39 students in our program. We saw the balcony where Ron and Hermione see Harry when he leaves the hospital wing (first movie) AND (drum roll please..) the Great Hall! (where the Great Hall scenes are filmed!)! We were all ecstatic.

the balcony...

the GREAT HALL...

But from there it only got better. Not only did we step inside the hallowed Great Hall (which is a lot smaller in real life), BUT we got to have tea there! I repeat: I had British tea (lunch - little sandwhiches, sponge cake, and hot chocolate actually) in Hogwart’s Great Hall (PS if it’s not apparent I am a Harry Potter fan). The enchanted celing was missing, as well as other signs of the wizarding world, but i still believe. :)

Ali and I with Dr. Howe (our Brit Literature Professor)

I love Oxford and I love Harry Potter :)  ...we ended the day with a sunset at Christ Church

quite lovely :)