day tripper

here's the great thing about the oxford program: classes are over by noon, and there are no classes on fridays.
it's pretty fantastic.
and it allows us to do a ton of exploring around oxford and other parts of england.
when am i ever going to get this opportunity again? never. so i'm doing my best to take advantage of it.

yesterday a few of us decided to take a day trip to blenheim palace, home to the duke of marlborough and birthplace of winston churchill. it's about half an hour from oxford by bus, so we walked to the station after class and caught a ride. it was definitely the best thing i've done this week.

i know i've said this about every place i've been, but blenheim was really beautiful. i mean, it's a palace, so how could it not be? it was originally built for the first duke of marlborough after he won the battle of blenheim, and every duke of marlborough has lived there since. winston churchill, grandson of the 7th duke, was actually born there, completely by accident (he was six weeks early). and he proposed to his wife there! in the temple of diana on the palace grounds:

so sweet. and fun fact: winston churchill and princess diana were distantly related! he was the grandson of the 7th duke and she was the daughter of the 8th earl spencer... i'm not exactly sure what kind of relations that makes them, but they're both in the spencer family. pretty cool, huh?

we toured the inside of the house, which was, of course, spectacular. the library reminded me of the one in beauty and the beast. i wanted to stay there forever. but i'm glad we moved on because as beautiful as the palace was, the grounds were far superior. have you seen the 2005 pride and prejudice movie? if not, then you need go watch it right now. but i felt like i was walking around in that movie for a full hour and a half. it was magnificent. seriously. there were lakes and hills and huge trees and it was just wonderful.

if you ever come to england, please go here. it will nourish your soul. honestly.

after wandering through the gardens for a while, we went back into the palace to tour the upstairs. huge mistake. what they didn't tell us was that the upstairs was no longer the actual house, but a sort of guided tour through the history of the house and each duke who's lived there, complete with a cheesy video tour guide and animatronics. it was awful. but once we got in, we had no choice but to go all the way through, which took about a half hour. and then we got outta there as fast as humanly possible.
by that time, the palace and gardens were starting to close, but we still had a little time to check out the pleasure gardens - home to the second largest hedge maze in the world. needless to say, we all instantly lost about ten years of maturity and wasted no time getting into it.

it was really fun, and we surprisingly didn't take very many wrong turns. after finding our way out, tatum and mary went into the butterfly house while emma and i waited outside (sure they have pretty wings, but butterflies are still bugs, and bugs are gross). after they came back out to meet us, we realized that tatum had accidentally brought a little friend with her:

the poor thing was hurt and couldn't fly, so we found him a nice tree to hang out in. we named him winston. it seemed fitting to the location.

i honestly don't know how yesterday could have been better. maybe if we'd gotten free ice cream or something, but aside from that, it's hard to think of any possible improvements.
blenheim is wonderful. you should go there. the end.