I think we found NARNIA!

Katherine and I decided to go on a walk in the park to celebrate finishing our rough drafts for our research papers. We figured we'd only be gone for a little bit, but it turned into hours! It was so fun though! We started out in University Parks. We walked all the way through and then found a trail that followed the river all the way to Marston and then found another park called Headington Hill Park. It was gorgeous! We walked through that park and then crossed the street and couldn't believe our eyes, but we had made it all the way to South Park. I couldn't believe that we had walked that far but had been in parks the whole way! It was such a beautiful walk too! We decided that before we leave Oxford, we have to walk the same path and then have a picnic at the last park. One of the best walks I've ever been on!

The Hills are Alive in Austria!

WOW! This trip was probably one of my favorites! It was so much fun! Each day was completely different! The first day we were in Salzburg, we went on a Sound of Music Tour and got to go to each scene of the movie and it was so neat to be there in real life! We went to the back of the VanTrapp house, the lake in their backyard, the trees where the kids hung out of, the gazebo where they sang "I am 16 going on 17", the church in Mondsee where they got married, and the 5 scenes in the Mirabell Gardens! It was so fun to sing the songs in each place! My friend Teal ran through a field in Mondsee and sang "The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music"! We got her on tape! Ha! Then we climbed up to the Fortress on top of the city and got to see the Nonnburg Abbey and a great view of the surrounding Alps!

On Friday, we walked around town and saw the house where Mozart lived and then went to a cafe on top of a hotel and had a great view of the Fortress and of the mountains around Salzburg! Then in the afternoon, we had a salt mine tour. Little did we know that it was in Germany! That's right! We got to go to GERMANY! Two trips in one. Two countries in one day! Woo hoo! We drove by the base of the mountain where Hitler's Eagle Nest is and got to see it from a distance. Not that I wanted to get any closer! Then we went to a little German town called Burchesgaden (I can't spell it) and we got to go on an underground tour of the salt mines! I had no idea what to expect, but it was better than anything I could have expected! It was so neat! We got to take a miner's train down a shaft and it was pitch black. There were no walls on the train either. We basically just sat on a bench facing forward and held onto the person in front of us. It was so fun. They had fake explosions go off periodically throughout the tour. I jumped evertime and grabbed the person in front of me! We got to go down a miner's slide and it was pretty fast and long! It was so fun! We went down as a group! We also got to ride across a salt lake on a boat and while we were pulled across, there was a light show going on around us on the walls of the mine. It was so neat! Then we got to the other side and got to taste clean salty water! Eww! Then we took the train back to the beginning! I think dad and Caleb would have loved it even more b/c it showed all the science involved with the making and production of salt and then it showed how the salt is pumped and how a rig moves all of it. I didn't understand all of it though, b/c our tour guide only spoke German! Ha! There were English audio tours, but it was a lot of facts and I was more interested in the light shows! It was really funny though, because I jokingly decided to "translate" to my group what I thought our guide was saying, but I really had no idea what he was saying. My friends thought it was really funny, b/c I was saying random things. But I finally decided to stop "translating" when an English family turned to me to ask what he said. Hahaha they thought I had been translating the whole time! ahahhahahah it was so funny. I just made something up and then decided not to "translate" anymore. I was just doing it for my friends, but apparently others were listening too!

We decided to got to Zell am See on Saturday! I'm so glad we did! The train ride was gorgeous! I can't even begin to describe how pretty it was to be following a river next to the Alps in Austria! I keep having to pinch myself while I'm over here to make sure I'm actually awake and not dreaming! We got to Zell am See and had lunch by the lake! (GORGEOUS!) If you've seen Band of Brothers, the lake that the Majors swim in at the end is the lake in Zell am See. We also went up to a lookout point that looked out over the city, the lake, and the surrounding Alps mountains! Then Briana and I (yes, there is another girl named Briana and her middle name is the same as mine too! Crazy) anyways, we decided to go hiking! We hiked all the way until we got to the top of the ski lift that they use in the winter time. We climbed until we reached the first patch of snow. We also took our pictures on the ski lift while wearing shorts! A little ironic! The view we had was picturesque! It could have been a postcard! We just got back to Oxford a few hours ago (Sunday) and I'm dreading doing my homework. Guess I got a little spoiled while I was in the Alps in Austria and Germany!

C.S. Lewis Tour, Blenheim Palace, Easter Weekend, and a psycho sheep!

On Thursday, we took a tour of C.S. Lewis' house and got to walk around the pond and the woods around his house! It was really neat to be in the same room where he wrote the Chronicles of Narnia! I'm actually reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe right now! It's so fun to be able to be reading a C.S. Lewis book in Oxford!

Katie Gager, Katherine Barnes, and I went to Blenheim Palace yesterday! It costs 12 pounds to get into the palace and 7 pounds to get into the grounds. However, we were sneaky and we snuck in a back gate and got in for free. Apparently, if you know about the public footpath, you can get in for free. Thank goodness Katie Gager had good eyes. We saved 7 pounds. Once we were in, we walked over to the sheep that were grazing. One of them had it's legs sticking straight up. When we came over to it, we realized that it was not dead, only stuck on it's back. Katherine and I gave it a boost up and saved it's life! We video taped the whole thing! It was great! We also got to ride a free kiddy Winston Churchill Express train! It didn't really go anywhere, but we were all about free adventures throughout the day! It's also Easter weekend. On Friday, we set up stations of the cross and also had a picnic at the park for 3 1/2 hours! I actually got a tan in England! We fed the duck and played frisbee too! Saturday we took a day trip to Woodstock. Today, Sunday, we had a sunrise service. We are about to have a burger and hotdog cookout in the backyard and then we will head to University Parks to hunt Easter eggs! I'm so excited! The girls exchanged Easter baskets this morning! I got a pint of icecream and Cadbury creme eggs from Kasey Morgan!