With my friend Rebecca visiting me after her semester in Rome, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to take the Blackwell's Literary Tour that I've wanted to take ever since the beginning of the year. For some reason though, I always put off taking the tour. It's partly because I didn't want to take the tour by myself and it's also because I, like most people, tend to take the place I live in for granted. I'm originally from the San Francisco Bay Area and the only reason I ever go to tourist places like the Golden Gate Bridge or Alcatraz is when I have a visitor to show around.

Anyway, I took the Blackwell's Literary Tour today with Rebecca. It was fantastic! Besides us, there were only two other people, so we had a very personalized tour. Our tour guide Peter was very sweet and very well-informed. It was obvious he loves Oxford and wants to share as much information as he can with visitors. I've been living in Oxford for about seven months now and I frequent many of the places we saw on the trip, but there were still so many cool things I learned.

For instance, my favorite mystery novelist Dorothy Sayers used to have a study room next to my favorite pub, The Turf. The room is the one shown beneath the peaked roof in the picture below.