3/2/12

I am a little embarrassed to admit this, but I did not leave the flat a whole lot on Friday. In the morning I went out to the classroom because well we had class. Class was interesting though, because Natania was not in class and so her husband Neil came in. It was pretty cool. We discussed the play we had seen the night before, and so I got a little sad because the play itself reminded me of a really sad time in my life and so that was kind of the mood I stayed in most of the day. Not to worry though! I watched a few episodes of Cougar Town and I was in good enough spirits to venture out into the world to buy supplies for dinner that night. I made fish and chips for the upstairs family, turned out pretty good and everyone seemed to enjoy it. And then the upstairs family women spent a grueling couple of hours trying to iron out all of the kinks in our traveling plans over spring break, looking for cheap hostels or hotels in Paris and the cheapest way to get to Florence. It has been really rough trying to do it all!

3/3/12

We went to Bath today!!! Best day I have had in a long time!! Bath is so beautiful and we were able to get a bus out to see Stonehenge! I will get into that in a bit tho.

The day started out iffy, we had to be up by about 4 in the morning in order to catch our train and so I was a little out of it for a while. I was awake enough to make it to the Tube Station without problems and it was cool being there so early! Nobody else was really there, it was more quiet than it had ever been!

I was so tired this entire time but when we finally got to Paddington Station and were able to board our train it was a little over an hour ride and so I got to take a little nap. And then we were finally in Bath!!!

Bath was so beautiful!! Its this tiny little town and everything is so cute! When we first got there it was still pretty early and so we were basically the only people out and wandering around the town. We started with just trying to find the center of the town where the Bath Abbey is. On the way there though we found some pretty buildings and churches and the Avon River to take pictures of, because we are girls and take pictures of everything!!!!

When we finally did get to the Abbey it was stunning!! The architecture is amazing and there were statues and figures all over it! We didn't get to go into it right away though because as I already said it was really early and nothing was open yet. We also had a bus that we had to catch, but that wasn't for another hour and so we just wandered around looking for more cute stuff, which we totally found!! There was this awesome bridge that we were able to take the most beautiful pictures of the river on and we tried to get group pictures on it.

One attempt which I will never forget in which Kelsey tried to set her camera on her bag to balance it on the bridge to get a picture of all of us almost ended badly when the wind blew and the camera was knocked off of the bag and almost fell off the bridge and would have fallen to a certain death. Luckily I was able to spring forward quick enough and slam my hand down on the camera and keep it on the bridge. Very scary experience!!

We wandered around for a little while longer and found another cute little spot with a view of the river from the other side of the bridge and took even more pictures!!

After a little while we decided to head back to the Abbey so that we wouldn't miss the bus, unfortunately we are all very easily distracted and so when we were going to pass a cute park we ended up entering the park to see all of the pretty statues and the lovely grassy areas.

Luckily we did not miss the bus though, the really cute purple bus. Can you guess where it took us?

We went to Stonehenge!!! IT WAS AWESOME!!! The bus driver man was so nice and told us about all of the pretty sites we went past on the way there too. It was great, except for the major headache that I got about halfway there and so decided to take a nap to try to get rid of it. Sadly when we arrived at Stonehenge I still had the headache and an additional stomachache and so I was not able to get any cutesy pictures of myself with it in the background but I still think I got some pretty awesome ones!

We spent a good hour at Stonehenge before we had to leave so that we didn't miss the bus, but I think I took in a lot in that one hour. They had a nice audio tour that explained different theories about the construction and myths surrounding the structure. I am a geek so I really enjoyed this history-esque lesson. But then before I knew it we were back on the bus and I was taking another mini nap in an attempt to yet again get rid of my aches and pains. This nap did not actually help but I did all that I could to still enjoy the day!

The group decided that we all wanted to see the Royal Crescent and the Bath Circus (no not with clowns and animals) so that we could see the beautiful expensive apartments that we will never be able to afford ever for our entire lives!

 After we got an albums worth of pictures taken at both of these places we decided to split up since some of us wanted to go see the Jane Austin Museum and others wanted to see the Roman Baths and/or Bath Abbey. I of course wanted to go see the Abbey which thankfully was free. It was gorgeous but I was a little sad when I learned there once was a Norman Church in that very spot, which I would have loved to see even more. Oh well, that's usually how it works out.

We didn't get in to see the Roman Baths, those we would have had to pay for and Kelsey made the point that we will be in the actual Rome within a few weeks and will see many Roman wonders at that time!

The rest of the day was spent mostly wandering around Bath making sure we didn't miss anything. Kelsey and I found a street performer who we were pretty sure was going to die or at least very badly injure himself with the stupid tricks he kept doing.

I was going to give him some money because he actually was pretty good but he was also kind of rude. So we walked around for a bit and found the oldest building in Bath and we walked past some of the buildings where the springs in Bath lead to, which were made into spas which (shocker) we could not afford to get into.

It was also starting to get to about that time when we all were complaining that we needed to eat and so we had to go on a mini search for food, it was at this point that someone found a cute little place that served some of the most delicious sandwiches I have had. I would say they were comparable to Jimmy Johns subs. And anyone who has ever been in a city that has a Jimmy Johns in it and how much I freak out until I get a sub from Jimmy Johns knows that this is a huge compliment to this little baguette shop!

When we were all done eating we needed to walk it off and so we decided to hike over to the home of Jane Austin. It wasn't really much to see, but it was still awesome to be there. It was also pretty obvious that this is a very common occurrence because people were staring at us from all angles. I took advantage of this to wave to some of the looker-ons  and see how many people I could get to wave back.

This was the end of my adventures in Bath. It was a great day and I would have loved to have stayed there for at least a whole weekend but I still feel that we got a lot done in the time we had! The night continued being entertaining for us when we got back as well. I made a big pot of mashed potatoes for my roommate and I to gorge on and we vegged out to the beautiful Heath Ledger in the amazing movie 10 Things I Hate About You. And then we passed out. The End.

3/4/12

Compared to yesterday today was a complete bore. No pictures again. Trust me nobody would want to see pictures from this day. I camped out in front of my computer and did a little research and watched a couple more episodes of Cougar Town. I would pretend to be ashamed but I'm really not. It was relaxing, and I feel good now. It was also Alex's 21st birthday, and so we had a feast in his honor (pizza and fries) and the upstairs family made a wonderful cake and card for him. Happy Birthday Alex!