This morning, we woke up early and met for our bus to Blenheim Palace at 8:30 AM in the hotel lobby. We were unable to get on the bus out front because it was not allowed to park on the main road outside the front of our hotel. Instead, we had to venture through the bottom garage of the hotel to access the back road behind the hotel to board our coach. Taking the coach was actually so nice because the backs of our seats all had USB ports, so I was able to charge my phone on the ride there. The seats were so comfortable, it was extremely difficult not to take advantage of it and fall asleep on the ride. I was able to get some extra sleep in to recharge before heading to the palace.

Upon our arrival to the palace, I was amazed! The plot of land was ginormous, I simply could not believe that it all belonged to the one family. When we entered the palace, there was a fashion show going on! We got to see a lot of Vivienne Westwood designs, which was super cool, especially because it was so unexpected! We walked all throughout the palace, looking at all of the different mannequins and all of the outfits they were wearing. We also got to see some of the portraits of different royal family members. The one of Winston Churchill looked just like how he did in all of my history books from school, so I am pretty sure they are accurate depictions of him.

After we finished walking through the main part of the palace, we ended up walking around the gardens! They were breathtakingly beautiful, so we took a few pictures and walked around taking in all of the view. We saw how far the land stretched as well. We wanted to try the hedge maze, but since we were a little pressed for time, we opted to go get some gelato instead. I got mango flavor and it was so good. We sat with out gelato and looked over the palace grounds just talking before we headed back to the coach bus and headed to Oxford!

Oxford itself was a cute little town with lots of places to eat. It almost reminded me of Forbes Avenue back in Pittsburgh, but an English version of course. We got some Shake Shack for lunch, which felt very American of us, but the food was so good. After lunch, we got to tour the Christ Church College of Oxford University, where an actual Harry Potter scene was filmed on a staircase! I have actually never read or watched the entire Harry Potter series, but I was tasked with sending some pictures to my friends back home, who happen to be huge fans. Oxford was a very pretty campus, but by the time we got back onto our bus, I was exhausted. Our lovely tour guide, Tim, revealed to us that he has been in Doctor Who, and he has played Winston Churchill in multiple different movies!

When we returned to Birmingham from Oxford, we had some free time, so my research group and I finalized our presentations for tomorrow. Some of us got Pizza Hut delivered to the hotel, which was totally worth it. Tomorrow, we present! The nerves are kind of settling in because we have no clue how many people we will actually be presenting to. That is it for today!