Day 2 (with fam)- 4 June 2019

We woke up early today and had breakfast at our b&b. The bed was aight and it was next to the window which was nice. Mom and Dad thought the birds and traffic were very noisy but I slept fine and I have no jet lag.

The lady who runs the house thought I was graduating and congratulated me because I wore my black skirt with the white short sleeve button up and little neck bow. Apparently in Oxford when you take exams or graduate you get dressed up and the outfit looks like this. We saw some people in the town dressed like this later. She is Mexican and her workers are all hispanic and she was telling us about the different weather in different places. I had eggs for breakfast. Apparently muffin in England means English Muffin. I wonder if they call a muffin an American muffin. At breakfast they played classical music which was funny and I liked it. One of the songs was a western song and they also played the imperial march which was hilarious.

After breakfast we checked out and drove to Blenheim.

Blenheim was a very nice house.

It is the Churchill estate however The Churchill never owned it. It looks a lot like Versailles but to me it was grander in size because of the land. The building itself is shaped just like Versailles but is smaller and has Georgian architecture I think. But the surrounding land seems to go on forever in all directions which is wild. It also has a huge manmade lake on it.

We explored the gardens first. They're pretty small and on the side of the house and have weird greek statues and then this really gorgeous obelisk fountain piece. It over looks the lake. Then we walked over to the rose garden and passed a pheasant! and also this memorial to Diana (roman goddess equivalent to Artemis) and Churchill statue. The rose garden was really pretty and the flowers were hugeeee it would be really pretty in full bloom.

Then we were gonna go to the cascades but it was too far so we went back. I saw on the map that there's a Harry Potter tree! I dunno what that means but I'm excited to find it.

We did the palace tour. It had an audio tour and it was really nice and the inside reminded me a lot of versailles. Some of the pieces in the rooms were actually made by the same people who worked on versailles.

It started in the foyer which has a gorgeous ceiling and then goes through some portraits in the hallways and the china cabinet room. One of the chinas has bugs on it and thats to show that each plate is unique and expensive. Then were the different state rooms. They were all really nice but average sized honestly. They had really large tapestrys that were across the corners of the rooms and told of the battle of blenhiem. The churchill's got to build blenhiem palace after he won the battle of blenhiem in ?france?. He was then rewarded money from the queen to build this (which I think was talked about in The Favourite move (bad movie)). It was so extravagant that they had to use their own fortune to finish building it.

After the state rooms there's this really cool room where the entire walls and ceilings are one big trompe l'oeil. It was gorgeous.

Then the other state rooms were aight and then it went to this gorgeous long room that was the longest room in Britain at the time. It was a big library with a huge organ at the end. I;m not really sure why there was an organ but I guess it was a church at some point. There was also a statue of Victoria. The ceiling in the room was gorgeous and the organ was a really pretty light blue.

Then there was this weird little exhibit about Churchill. I was bored by then though so I didn't really pay attention. Apparently Churchill invented the romper because during WWII he wanted something to just throw on during air raids. He was famous for wearing them and there was a red velvet one on display. I think him inventing them is a bit of a stretch but he might have popularized them as a fashion item. They also had his bedroom where he was born there. Apparently his mother was there for a dinner party and went into labor and had him at Blenheim even though he never lived there or inherited it. It also had a piece of his hair from when he was 5 which was pretty creepy.

After that we walked across the bridge (over the lake) and looked at the victory statue pole thing from a distance and then found the Harry Potter tree! I was thinking it was going to be the trees from deathly hollows where Voldemort finds the elder wand cause thats what the lake looks like but it was actually the tree from the young Snape flash backs! It is advertised as the last standing harry potter tree (but that is incorrect). It was so cool!!! I tried to take pictures sitting at the tree like he does in the movie. (the scene is in order of the phoenix in Snapes memories when Harry is able to do the occlumency back at Snape). The tree is super super old and is falling apart so they had to tie the branches up to other trees around it to support it. The entire inside is hollow which is really cool and the branches still live.

Then we drove back to oxford and had lunch at a pub where Tolkein and CS Lewis used to frequent. It was called Eagle and Child and it was okay. The parking for it was wild and also super expensive. At the pub you seat yourself and then order at the bar and tell them your table number and they bring the food to you which is strange. We almost didn't find a table. There was one alllll the way in the back. The bar is superr small and twisty and really cool looking. The front room is just a hallway with two little compartments with tables in them and fireplaces and then the next room is the bar and then there another little room and then the room we were in which had a greenhouse roof. There was a door in the corner that said do not block this door or Aslan will smite you (or something like that) and it said Narnia on it.

The food took awhile to come out and I got fish and chips and it was okay. I wanted a Guinness but dad forgot to order it. I tried dads beer but it was bad.

Then we went and parked in a parking garage. Here you park wherever and then put your licenses plate in the machine and how many hours you want and you pay and then display the ticket in your window.

We walked over to where our tour was meeting and we found a Board Game store! Dad was bummed he didn't know about it cause he could've made friends and played games yesterday.

Next to the tour start location was a harry potter store so we went in. They had so much merch I've never seen before! I feel like the UK has different merch than us. I hope I don't buy too much.

The tour was amazing!!! We started on Broad street and she told us about the rivalry between Trinity college (like slytherin) and Balliol college (like gryffindor) and how they've always rivaled and it used to be because Balliol was progressive and accepted asian students and all these other things and Trinity was very conservative but now it's just cause. Rowling based Slytherin and Gryffindor off of this. She lived in Oxford for awhile while she wrote and she applied to Oxford but was rejected and later they made her a special person or something. She also pointed out this cool metal statue of a man on the roof of a building which stands out a lot from the rest of the old town but isn't noticeable because its on the roof.

Then she showed us the library. It was gorgeous and it's where they filmed the transfigurations classroom scenes (McGonagalls' dance class in goblet of fire), the hospital wing in the first one, library scenes in goblet of fire. We only got to go in the one room (transfigurations room) which is sorta a chapel? i think. It's gorgeousssss. I really wanted to go in the library part cause it's hugeee and mostly underground but we didn't have time.

I found out that Oxford isn't one college but rather all the colleges in the town. Sort of like how I'm in the University of Delaware but I'm in the arts and sciences college except all the different colleges in Oxford have all different majors. They're also all mostly small and exclusive (about 400 people per school). The town itself of Oxford is essentially only colleges and the dorming and all the other people have to live outside the town.

We got to do a little photoshoot in the transfiguration room and then we went down this cute little street with an arch over it and a little alley way. The alleyway might've been inspiration for diagon alley and it has the oldest pub in oxford in it all the way down it's windy little path. The arch is called the bridge of sighs. This is because it used to connect the prison to the execution so prisoners gave their last sighs. But nowadays it connects a school to the bathroom so the sigh means a different thing.

We got to go in New College which was at the end of a really windy walled in road. This was to protect the students because back in the day the students and then townspeople would fight a lot and murder each other so this was to protect the students. i couldn't imagine going to school and also having to worry about not getting murdered.

The New College has a really pretty courtyard and then this cool hill with stairs to nothing. It also has the last remains of the city wall that the city takes really good care of.

Then we went up these cool windy stairs in the courtyard to the dining hall! It was sooo cool! All the colleges in oxford have dining halls like this and this probably inspired Rowling. The dining hall had 4 long tables and then a table for the headmasters at the top on a raised platform just like Hogwarts! It also had portraits all over the walls. The school motto is Manners Maketh Man (also the Kingsmen motto) and the founder of the school went bankrupt building it and taught all his students that it was more important to be kind than be rich and snooty. The dining hall was being set up for a fancy dinner. They have fancy dinner ever tuesday and thursday evening. It's funny cause on the other side of the hallway was a big modern dining hall. They eat their meals in the dining hall but it's only fancy on tues and thurs dinners and special occasions. It was soooo cool. I wish I went there. Then I could've lived out all my Harry Potter dreams.

After that we went into The Courtyard. It was the courtyard in Goblet of Fire. We got to take pictures in it and with the tree! It was soooo cool I was freaking out. It's a courtyard with a bunch of fancy gothic windows in sets of threes and a hallway going around it and theres a really old tree in it and thats where they shot the scene where Mad Eye turns Draco into a ferret. It was soo cool!!!

Then we went into the gothic church attached to the college. It was really pretty and had a gorgeous wall of statues behind the altar. It was wild. And the stained glass was really pretty and the pews were set up facing each other and had little things on the end of each seat that she said were there for you to lean on and keep awake since you weren't allowed to sit. Each end thing was unique.

When we entered the church the organ man started playing and it freaked me and mom the hell out. He also was literally just banging on it and it sounded like a horror film.

Then the tour ended. I'm really glad we got to do the tour.

Afterwards we got scones and tea from the abbey tea shop down the street cause she recommend it. They were really good scones. Dad ranked them above airport scones and my scones but below the Pax house scones.

Then we drove to the cotswolds. We stayed in this really cute town called Stow-on-the-Wold in this really cute little hotel called The Old Stock Inn. Mom and Dad said it reminded them of the Pax house and they said this a lot.

We had dinner at the restaurant and it was really good. I had salmon on top of caviar and rice and it was sooo good. I had a cocktail that was grapefruit and mint and was really really good.

Then we played games for a bit and I beat dad in boggle.

Then we went to our room and went to bed. Mom took a bath in the cool claw foot tub. I watched goblet of fire to see the places I went to day!

Our room is really cool and has exposed rafters and mom says it reminds her of Pax house. If they say that one more time smh. We're on the top floor up some wonky stairs and a hallway and the backyard has a porch on our level and a porch down below and a fire pit.