Hey friends,

I spent the weekend up in the Lake District with IFSA-Butler students from Oxford, LSE, UCL, and Lancaster University. (For people who don’t remember – IFSA-Butler is the institution I applied through to get into Oxford!) I left from Oxford early in the morning with a group of my friends, and we all just barely managed to make the train up to Penrith thanks to massive train AND tube delays (It was a struggle and a half). After nearly five hours on the train, we reached Penrith just after 6 PM, and it was already pitch black. We settled into our hostel and had a fairly relaxing night.

We woke up bright and early Saturday morning to head out for various activities. I signed up for the half-day morning hike and canoeing in the afternoon. The hike was definitely difficult – it was fairly steep, although thankfully not too muddy. We climbed to the top of an old slate quarry, nearly a thousand feet up, and the views along the way as well as at the top were absolutely breathtaking. I’ll be posting all the pictures on my photography page (which you can find here) but here’s a few shots:

The hike took about three hours, and we headed back down to the hostel for lunch. After lunch, we drove to the local lake to go canoeing. It was cold and windy, but overall, the canoeing was great – the water was crystal clear, the surrounding mountains were gorgeous (and some were snow-capped!) and it was overall very serene.
Now, to explain the title of this blog – parts of Star Wars, Episode VII were filmed on the lake and the surrounding forests where I was canoeing! Maz Kanata’s bar was CGI’d onto one of the islands in the middle of the lake. The forest fight scenes between Ben Kenobi and Rey near the end of the film were filmed in the surrounding forests. The mountains surrounding the lake were the inspiration for the mountains where Rey finds Luke Skywalker; however, the actual scene between Rey and Luke itself was filmed in Ireland. Our guide actually worked on the set of the movie back in mid-2014, and he told us about all of the secrets and the confidentiality contracts he had to sign, since the project hadn’t been revealed at that point.
Here’s a few more pictures:

Following canoeing, the night was pretty uneventful – I ate dinner with my friends and spent the rest of the night hanging out with the IFSA-Butler staff and getting work done.
The next morning, we had the option of exploring a cute local town nearby; however, the second we reached town, I found the closest café and proceeded to do work – I had so much to catch up on! Thankfully, I got almost everything done, and I was able to sleep (relatively) peacefully on the train ride back to London without worrying about getting work done (until I got back to Oxford, that is…).

This weekend was amazing – cold, wet, and windy, yes, but I loved every minute of it. I’m so glad I was able to get away from Oxford for a few days and see England’s beautiful countryside.

Lots of love,

Tasha