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It has only been a few days since my last blog, but I have been so fortunate to have done several very cool things since then! On Sunday, some friends and I went out to Christ Church Meadows (which is a beautiful lawn area behind one of the colleges and churches in Oxford) for a "caucus race". This was a big festival celebrating the 150th anniversary of Alice in Wonderland (there is some connection to Oxford here, like the guy that wrote it was from here and came up with the story and told it to his children on the train ride from here to somewhere). It consisted of a lot of performers and music and dancing lessons and silliness which was a lot of fun to see. After that, a friend and I found a place in town to watch the Wimbledon final. It was surprisingly difficult to find a place with a t.v. and people who cared about the biggest tennis tournament of the year, but we finally did, and I got to try shepherd's pie while I watched (not that great). Later, we were led on a walk by the faculty through an awesome park in North Oxford, and we got to see J.R.R. Tolkein's favortie spot to write near the river, his house, and Emma Watson's primary school. I also stopped with a group on the way back to have a proper English tea and to eat a delicious chocolate/ice cream crepe...YUM! The next morning, we did not have class because of our "orientation" at the Bodleian Library. This library is extremely old and full of some amazing history, but the most notable parts of our orientation included, seeing where they filmed the scenes in Harry Potter when Harry visits the medical room of Hogwarts, noticing that our instructor and her aide were wearing robes, and having to recite a pledge that we would not "kindle any fire therein" among several other things. I got some reading done on that afternoon before I went out to see the Olympic torch being run through town!!!! Tuesday, the faculty led us on another walk (a really, really long one) to a neighboring town called Iffley. It was a really old town that housed a church built by the Norman invaders in the 1100's!!! And the coolest part was that it is still an active church! It is always open to the public, so we were able to just walk in and check it out for ourselves. After much reading and homework Tuesday night, I made a day-trip with a few friends on Wednesday to the town of Bath, England. Here we toured the ruins of the Roman Baths that were built around 70 A.D. (whoa!) and also another beautiful church in town. To cap it off we wandered around the town and saw some other neat things, including a Spanish tapas restaurant that was serving a "Feast Like a King Meal", which was right up my alley. It did not disappoint. Overall, its been a great few days and I can't wait to report again on what the next few will bring me!
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Leza Hello Taylor, I have enjoyed so much reading your blog and looking at your amazing photos. I really love it there and I am so excited that you are having such an adventure. Doesn't it excite you that there are so many beautiful and amazing places to explore. Explore as many as you can sweet Taylor:) LZ