The best whirlwind ever.

This weekend is only half over and I feel like I have done so much! First of all I left after work and headed south to Oxford to stay with my friend Corey.

Corey is an old friend of mine. We went to school together from sixth to eighth grade before separating for high school due to district lines. We somehow managed to keep up with one another on occasion, and he was nice enough to let me come explore Oxford while he is getting his masters there. Corey has traveled a ton and is studying anthropology and you will probably see him someday winning an award for a documentary. Corey is someone I would define as "my people" the type of person that I can always pick up conversation with and never seem to run out of things to say no matter how much time seems to pass.

Oxford was awesome. It's a really cool town with lots of great buildings, though honestly its awesomeness was probably affected by having someone around from home. The girls I'm on the trip with are really great people, just not "my people" though the trip is still going and those friendships may still be developing.

But really, Oxford is a good town. It's relatively small and you can walk just about everywhere (which we did) and the buildings and lands are just breathtaking. We went to some good pubs and dive bars and just spent the days walking around and seeing the city. It was great to get a prospective of Oxford from an American graduate student because the University is set up very differently than Sheffield. Sheffield is more of an American style University whereas Oxford has a college system which divides its students up much like Harry Potter's sorting hat.

I left Oxford this morning (though I seriously contemplated hanging out for another day) and came into Sheffield via Birmingham (Berm-ing-um) my trains were all on time and much much better than my journey there in which the air conditioning did not work for the first half of the journey. I was reminded of my previous train experiences in the former eastern block, but at least in those one could open a window. After arriving back in Sheffield I hopped on a bus to get to Chatsworth House.

Chatsworth House is beautiful, the home and especially the gardens that surround it. Words cannot describe really, please check out my photos. The house has been a part of the movie Pride and Prejudice (Mr. Darcy's House) and is the real life setting for the story of the Dutchess of Devonshire which inspired the movie 'Dutchess' with Keira Knightley. The grounds are expansive and the flowers are gorgeous. We had a picnic lunch on the grounds and took in the great weather, I even got a tan walking around Oxford, it's a miracle!

Tomorrow we are heading to North Wales to Snowdonia. It's another long day with an early start, but it should be worth it!