Well, I’m off enjoying some wine tasting today for my birthday, but I wrote a recap yesterday for you all to hopefully enjoy! 🙂

While studying abroad I was so blessed to have many visitors. If you remember, my dad flew over to England with me, and my second visitor was one of my best friends, Sarah. She arrived on a Thursday night and left the following Sunday, so it was a short trip, but we did so much and had so much fun!

One of the nights, we took the train into London. (She had been told by a friend to try Irn Bru, which is why that drink is kind of half in the picture.)

Sarah had never been to England before, and was ecstatic. I can’t say I blame her! 😉

We got into Waterloo station and headed straight to the river so Sarah could see the sights.

At first, I was kinda bummed it was so dark out, but the more I thought about it, I love the way Parliament looks at night almost better than during the day. So I’m not sure she was missing out on anything!

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The next day, I went to class, but Sarah and I and another one of my friends celebrated my birthday at a pub in Kingston. 🙂 I didn’t take any pictures, but what a great memory to have: a golden birthday celebrated in England!

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On Saturday, we woke up early to catch a coach to Oxford with my British Life & Culture class. Thankfully, the instructors and organizers for the class were perfectly fine with Sarah coming along! 🙂

Sarah and I both agreed that Oxford is an amazing town. There is just a feel to it: collegiate, ancient (well, by American standards – it was founded in the 13th century!) yet modern, and just beautiful.

The decoration on this doorway inspired C.S. Lewis to create Mr. Tumnus, a character in The Chronicles of Narnia!

After a quick lunch, Sarah and I stopped into this little market.

One of the first shops we came across was a chocolate shop….oh darn. 😉

There were two things on the menu called hot chocolate. One was powdered hot chocolate that was mixed with plenty of hot milk. The other was literally melted chocolate with just a tiny bit of milk added to it to make it…well…drinkable.

Guess which one we went for? 🙂

That stuff was sooooo delicious, and surprisingly not too sweet. Just perfect. Yum.

After browsing around on our own, we met up with my class to tour Christ Church College.

If there are three things you should know about me, it is that I love food, the Beatles, and Harry Potter. Sarah is the same way about Harry Potter, so for us to be in the building that inspired many scenes in the book was just beyond words.

The staircase that Harry and the other first years walked up to enter the Great Hall:

The Great Hall! (Well, the room that inspired it, anyway.)

Oh hey, Henry.

Isn’t this just beautiful?:

After a bit more touring, we ended up in a gift shop.

I’m still convinced my letter got lost in the mail.

We then headed back to the bus.

Bye, Oxford!

When we got back to Kingston, we headed straight to my favorite pub, the Druid’s Head, for some dinner.

It was so so so much fun having Sarah there with me, even if it was for just a couple of days. We had a blast wandering around Kingston and Oxford and enjoying the country both of us love so much! 🙂

I hope you enjoyed the pictures. Thanks for stopping by, have a wonderful Saturday!