I’ll be brief...

Or at least try to. lol

Below are some pictures I took while in Oxford and Stratford. More of Oxford than Stratford (only 3 of Stratford), why? Because Stratford was flooded and everywhere we would have gone to explore and have more photo ops was flooded.. included the road where Anne Hathaway's home is (Shakespeare's wife), they’ve made it onto a museum.

We had better luck with Oxford, walked around took lots of pictures of random buildings, great architecture. Our trip included a ticket to St. Mary’s church where we could climb the stairs to the very top. But after climbing St. Paul’s (was it last week?) I’d had enough of climbing church steps. Instead I choose to visit Christ Church, the biggest and most popular of the Oxford Colleges (there are 39 in the Oxford University umbrella!) Plus, Chris Church was the backdrop for Hogwarts in Harry Potter. Thankful the stairs did not lead us in a different directions and we did get to the hall (but no feast - sadness) and no scary Snape just around the corner. :) Pictures are below. It was pretty awesome, especially since the book had just been release that day. :)

The Christ Church Cathedral was pretty amazing too, unfortunately my pictures came out pretty dark, my camera is not so great for indoor. And the courtyard in Christ Church was pretty amazing, I just wanted to sit and have a picnic. Unfortunately they don’t allow anyone on the grass and we had to head back to meet the rest of our group, we were heading to Stratford next.

Like I mentioned parts of Stratford were flooded. It had been raining across England since the day before! And really badly. I guess on Friday the tour company couldn’t even get into Stratford... the river Avon had overflowed.. it still was overflowed when we got there but not so bad we couldn’t drive to certain parts of the city. It was really sad as we drove to Stratford. Fields and neighborhoods where now small lakes. And I’ve read it hasn’t gotten better. Sunday was the only day it didn’t rain but it began again today.. and boy is it cold!!! I haven’t been cold at all since I’ve gotten here.. but today I have felt it. I may actually need to break out the jean jacket to wear tomorrow. lol

Anyway, back to Saturday. The trip from London to Oxford was about an hour and a half, and it was beautiful. So green (all that rain), sweeping hills dotted with cows and sheep. Thatch roof houses, itty bitty towns with narrow cobblestone roads and their steeple churches. It was right out of a book. The trip to Oxford to Stratford was just as amazing, the area is called Cotswold. I tried to take pictures from the bus but they didn’t turn out, I which they could have just stopped a couple of times just to absorb the area. I had the Pride and Prejudice soundtrack playing on my iPod the whole time, it seemed fitting. lol

We finally left Stratford at about 430 and made it back to London by 6 that evening. All in all a very nice visit inspite of the flooding.

This coming Friday, July 27th I’ll be going with the same tour company to Stonehedge and Bath and next weekend I’ll be in Paris (same tour company) for 3 whole days!!! I can’t wait!!!

And then I’ll be on my way home, don’t know if I should cry or not. I miss home but I don’t want to give up London! I love London and all it has to offer, which is so much!!!

Well, it’s time for me to go to bed... I have an early day tomorrow with another late night. Midterms this week :)

Oh, enjoy the pics below :)