I play Tour Guide for a while

Last week I had the honor of being named Official Tour Guide for my family! After Mom and I got back from Ireland, Dad and Curt came to Oxford for the week so we were all here together for the first time since Christmas! Dad and Curt got here Sunday in time for us to duck out of the rain and go to Christ Church for their Palm Sunday service, which I really enjoyed, but I think Dad and Curt were a little jet-lagged! Afterwards, I took them to Eagle and Child for lunch - that is the pub where C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and the rest of the 'The Inklings' used to meet every Tuesday morning to discuss their books. They enjoyed their first English pub experience - I think they were just glad to have something other than airplane food! That afternoon we tried to find some things to show them around Oxford that were inside - it was very cold and rainy. Monday, Mom, Dad and Curt all went to Salisbury to see the cathedral and Stonehenge while I was in class. That night I took them to Ali's van for kebabs (delicious!) and then we came back to the common room in House 10 to watch Across the Universe, which Dad had brought for us to watch on DVD (it hasn't been released over here yet!). Tuesday morning we did some serious walking - I dragged them ALL over Oxford - to the Radcliffe Camera, the Sheldonian Theatre, the Bodleian Library, Vaults and Garden (my favorite place for tea) in the church of St. Mary the Virgin, then to Blackwell's Bookstore (6 miles of bookshelves!), the Varsity Shop to get some University t-shirts for everyone, the Covered Market to get pashminas and Ben's Cookies, and then to On the Hoof for some baguettes for lunch! Then we tried to take a tour out to Binsey, but the River Thames was SO flooded that we couldn't get there - the path had disappeared under water, so we just made it as far as Port Meadow, where we fed some angry horses and then we ran away (but not before we got some good pictures!) Tuesday night we went to Turf's Tavern for some good ol' fashioned fish and chips! Wednesday we went to Head of the River Pub for lunch (we ate outside on the patio right on the Thames) and then walked through Christ Church Meadow. We went on a tour of Magdalen College which led us to Addison's walk - one of the most beautiful trails through Oxford along the Cherwell River. There were lots of beautiful flowers, and the river was so flooded that we could hardly tell where it was supposed to be! Wednesday for dinner we had a well-balanced meal of brownies and ice cream at G&D's! Then Thursday we took a train to London for the weekend! Thursday night we got to see The Mousetrap - the longest running play in the world, written by Agatha Christie. It was a very entertaining murder mystery that we all enjoyed - we saw the 23,048th showing. Then Friday we got to tour the Tower of London with a very funny "Beefeater", as they call their tourguides who actually live and work at the Tower. We got to see all kinds of history there and hear about all the crazy things that have happened there over the years. Then we went outside of the walls and took the typical Tower Bridge pictures. It was about to start raining at this point, so we ran back to the Underground and decided to go walk around Harrod's for a while since it was raining. We saw some awesome stuff there - my favorite was the piano room. They had a piano that I got to play that recorded what I played and a computer wrote out the music! It was incredible - if I win the lottery that will be the first thing I buy...after I end world hunger. I may bet getting this out of order a bit, but at some point we went to Trafalgar Square (it's my favorite place in London) and looked around the National Gallery for a while. We also came back later to the National Portrait Gallery which had a Bluestocking (a term for intelligent women) exhibit, which I was very interesting because of our theme for the pod I lived in last semester back in Abilene - the Bluestocking Group was our inspiration for our different activities and projects. We also went to King's Cross Station while it was raining to find Platform 9 3/4 (all you Harry Potter fans know what I'm talking about). We also had the opportunity to go to Good Friday service at St. Paul's Cathedral which was absolutely amazing! It's such a beautiful cathedral and the service was awesome - I love listening to the choirs. I'm pretty sure I've gotten this all out of order, but those are the basics from our London weekend! Saturday morning, Dad and Curt had to leave early to catch their plane back to Dallas, so Mom and I slept in a little bit and then went to get tickets to see the matinee of Les Miserables - it was absolutely incredible! I couldn't believe I had made it almost 20 years without seeing it before! Then we walked around London (in the snow!) for a while. We also went to Wagamama for lunch - we had some awesome Japanese food! It seems strange to go to London to eat Japanese food, but you can't find Wagamama in the states, so it was still a cultural experience! Before we had to catch our train back to Oxford, we went to catch a glimpse of Buckingham Palace and then we made a trip to the grocery store to see just how much chocolate we could buy. We used the excuse that mom needed to take back all these English cookies and candy bars to her friends so they could try them...we just happened to get a few extras for ourselves! Sunday morning Mom and I went to St. Aldate's for Easter service and then to Brown's cafe for a very nice Easter lunch! After we both went to our respective houses to rest for a while, Mom came over for "dinner" and we (again) had a chocolate feast - Mom had bought some very fancy little pastries at the French bakery on the way home, so I made some tea and we had cookies, cake and croissants for dinner! Overall, it was a wonderful week and I really enjoyed getting to show my family where/how I live here in Oxford!