I finally realised a life dream of mine: to go creep on a huge English country house! I went to Blenheim Palace, owned by the Duke of Marlborough and the family home of Sir Winston Churchill. They were not short on swans.
Back at the beginning of the eighteenth century (yay) some dude named John Churchill won a huge military battle in the War of the Spanish Succession and cause he was bros with the king, the king and queen gave him the title Duke of Marlborough and as a present they had a ridiculously huge house built for him. I think this is pretty cool of King Charles II because before John was a duke, he totally got caught banging the king's favorite mistress but the king was cool with it. But apparently Churchill was a stone cold fox and you know Charles had like 100 mistresses so whatever. 
When you first rock up to this place you think daaaaaaaaamn BBC period pieces did NOT lie. And then you think hold up, how come one family gets to own what is essentially a national park? And a river? This house is RIDICULOUS? WHY ISN'T SOMEBODY ON THIS? REVOLUTION!!!
But it's all good because the front part is actually a public park, and the family only lives in part of the (still freaking huge) house. The 'park' behind the house is seriously national park material, and you can go hang around there for free if you want. Just nothing but rolling hills and trees and things as far as you can see.
I went into the house bit and after a behind-the-scenes tour of how the house was built and about the lives of some of the dukes, I decided to skip the rest of the house and go explore more of the foresty parts. It was too gorgeous outside to look at State Rooms all day, but you KNOW I'll be sneaking around Castle Howard and Highclere Castle whenever I get the chance.
I didn't get to go to the back part which is Blenheim Park (I ended up walking 12 miles that day, most of which was me getting lost on the FRONT YARD of the house...dang y'all) but I did walk along the river on the side of the house and made friends with a duck and four swans. Two of the swans followed me all the way down the river, and I really wanted to jump in there and go for a swim but I was pretty sure I'd get called out by some of the other tourists or pecked to death by the swans. I don't know if you know this, but swans are HUGE and really mean and all the swans in the UK somehow belong to the queen so if you mess with one it's illegal. But why would you anyway because I'm pretty sure the swans would not think twice about putting you DOWN.
In conclusion, giant British houses are FOR REAL and now you can go walk around on their grass defiantly. But only if they let you.
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