Warwick and Oxford

 hello all,  once again it's been an overcast, but wonderful time. It's hard to believe we left Chester yesterday morning. Due to the roundabouts it took us approximately a half an hour longer than it should have to get out of town,  but we eventually made it to the highway. We're  much more comfortable driving on the left side of the road now and are becoming much better with dealing with the roundabouts. We decided to stop by Shrewsberry, which is  of the prep school that several Leftwiches attended.  We got to the town, but unfortunately there was it to diversion on the road and the GPS could not figure out how to get us to the school with the road work being done.  it truly was more than we wanted to deal with so, unfortunately, while we were with in a grasp of the school, we decided to forget it and get back on the highway and head to Oxford. Fortunately, Cham had noticed on the way up a sign for Warwick Castle so we decided to stop there instead.  we got there with approximately 2 1/2 hours remaining to tour. We had not done any research on the current Warwick Castle, but knew what an important role the castle and the families that had controlled it had played in English history.  therefore, we were quite surprised when we had entered a hybrid Busch Gardens/historical site. It truly was like entering a theme park. We eventually found out that it had been sold to Madame Tussads who then later sold it to Merlin entertainment. We asked if the current Duke ever came back to Warwick and were told when his father sold it he said he never wanted to see it again and had remained in Perth, Australia. I can't imagine the amount of money it takes to run this kind of a estate  because it is massive. But, I also can't imagine the emotions you have to realize you have to turn it into a theme park to preserve it. From a historical point of view, it was very interesting. If I lived in the surrounding area and had young children or grandchildren,  you can believe I'd buy a seasons pass because they had some remarkable programs. It was just not what we had expected so that was the biggest surprise of all. We got back on the road and finally ended up in Oxford. We are not staying in Oxford proper, but on the outskirts of town. There are some huge infrastructure projects going on right now so we were very happy not to have to deal with the roundabouts and parking, but the holiday inn we're staying in leaves much to be desired. However, it's a short walk to the bus stop  which takes you right into the city center and that has made it all worthwhile. We thoroughly enjoyed touring Oxford all day. We started with a morning tour that lasted 2 1/2 hours and highlighted one of the colleges.   Oxford has an amazing history which once again starts with the Romans, moves into the Saxons, the Normans also enter into it and then it  evolves into Britain. Our tour guide, Jeff, was our age, incredibly knowledgeable, looked like he had stepped out of the hippie era, spoke with the quasi British accent  with some traces of New York thrown in. I did eventually ask where he was from and he admitted he was from New York. The longer he spoke with our group the more American his accent became. We never did hear why he was in Oxford because he graduated from NYU, but he was  such an interesting individual. We asked him to lunch but unfortunately he had to do another tour. He was extremely well read, was very interested in film, and very spiritual.  We did an afternoon tour of the library  which was fascinating. Oxford  is  One of six depositories for anything that is published in Great Britain. The library is enormous, with another building in a different town just to hold books. Oxford is beautiful, it has such  Great history and beautiful, harmonious architecture, but it's still a college down. When we left this evening around 9 o'clock, you could tell things were going to start to break loose. It may be hard to see but I am putting a picture on that when people  pass their exams, they are showered with huge pieces of colorful metal confetti,  toast with champagne and shaving cream  shot at them. and This was especially prominent around Merton college. I imagine it's quite a rollicking event.  i'm also going to include a picture of  The oxford union, the debating society that the Jefferson debate is debating society at UVA is based on. For those of you who are familiar with the structure of Jeff Hall, yes, They are worlds apart but they share the same spirit. It's been said that whoever is the president of the Oxford debating society will become one of the prime minister's of England.

 i'm including some pictures of Warwick Castle and also some pictures of beautiful Oxford. Tomorrow we had off for Blenheim, their ancestral home of Winston Churchhill. That promises to be another full, but wonderful day. Thanks so much for all of your comments. Please let me know  if  there's anything you'd like to hear more about. Cheers! Edie and Cham  pS-I'm also going to include a picture of a store that sells videogames, but they also have a huge board set up in the middle of the store where people come and play video games  with the structures on the board. Perhaps they do this and other cities, but I've never seen it done. I think it's a great way for people to interact personally while they can build their sets using  their own Xbox games.