The Baths of Bath

22 February, 2014

Once upon a time (or last Saturday), in a land far far away, a girl named Christy joined her adventurous friends on a trip to Bath. Misleading though the city name may be, I’m not talking about a giant city inside of a bath tub. Though I must admit, that would be awesome.

But wipe away those disappointed tears because there will be baths in this tale. Swimming pool sized baths used by old Roman guys, no less.

Our journey began at the Bath Abbey, preferable for its lack of admission fee – if you don’t count the aggressive donation collector – and it certainly did not disappoint. The inside was absolutely gorgeous and I again found myself wondering what kind of withdrawal symptoms I’ll have when I come back home to find I’ve been taking all the beautiful buildings for granted.

We left the abbey to fuel up and explore the city a little more. Recognize the picture below, anyone? I somehow always find the filming locations whenever they exist to be found, but I swear this time it was a total accident! (Other times, I must admit, it was the furthest thing from an accident).

"I'll escape now from that world, from the world of Jean Valjean.
There is nowhere I can turn, there is no way to go on!!!"

After our exploration, we returned to the Roman Baths. Let me just say, after this trip, I think I would have quite liked being a Roman. Apparently the ancient Romans used bath houses as we use our golf courses; to relax, enjoy some recreational fun and do business.

From what I could gather, this is the life of a Bathian Roman:

•  Wake up
• Spend hours relaxing and doing business in the public, natural hot spring baths - where they swam naked and coed. (scandelousss!)
• Have a supposedly more productive business day after enjoying a fresh and relaxing start in the morning.
• Go back to the baths.
• Go home to sleep and do it all over again!

Like I said, not too shabby of an existence, if you ask me!

After we finished longing for the days of the Romans, we decided to do some more exploration by foot. This turned out to be a very good idea as we soon stumbled upon the Jane Austin Centre which was well worth a visit. Plus, we got to meet Mr. Bingley!!! (Or at least a random publicity guy outside, dressed up as Mr. Bingley… I say it counts!)

After a few wrong turns, we finally found the Royal Crescent. Not only was this a good view, but it was adjacent to a lovely looking park. Unfortunately, it was a gated park for residents only. So we basically just stood at the gate and gazed longingly at the rolling hills and cheerful people running and playing in slow motion. The mental picture in your head is correct, we felt very much like we were at the zoo, observing English people in their natural habitat. It was a rather awkward experience for us, and I would assume a much more awkward experience for them. But we ignored those minor details and proceeded to stand there for literal hours while we talked. Absolutely nothing weird about that. Eventually we left - I am sure to the mass relief of everyone trying to enjoy their Saturday at the park.

The Royal Crescent
aka where I completely failed at fitting this awesome but
extremely long and curvy building into one good picture.

At this point I found myself going into an establishment - for the second time in a few days - with the sole intention of getting my afternoon tea… It’s happening. I’m turning into an English person.

Random aside: Speaking of tea and English-ness, at the pub quiz this week (which brings up the whole other issue that I regularly go to pub quizzes… they’re turning me into one of them!) one of our friends said that he wished there was such thing as a portable kettle hoister so that you could just have your kettle attached to your belt and always have tea ready wherever you go. I have to say, amused as I was, I quite like the idea.

When we had finished our tea, I can safely say we were all feeling very relaxed and were happy to make our way back to the bus stop. On our way back, we saw another few of these beauties. 

Because us poor Americans would look the wrong way and be run over otherwise. I commend those who work tirelessly to prevent groups like us from being the next sad cover story for the dangers of tourism. I take my hat off to you, kind street painting people! (Or I would... if I was wearing a hat. Check back in a few months and I'm sure I will have progressed from afternoon tea and pub quizzes to a full on bowler hat. Maybe, just maybe...)

Another Random Aside (sorry!): I apologize for the steadily decreasing number of pictures (mostly, I mean Facebook). My poor hands get cold when they have to leave the sanctuary of my warm pockets for too long and, though my tired eyes are happy when there are less than a million pictures to sift through at the end of the day, I know thorough documentation is appreciated. I promise to try and talk my hands out of their cave for a little longer next time.

A Wale of a Good Time

15 February, 2014

The adventure continues, this time to a whole new country! Sure, it was Wales, which is still a part of the United Kingdom but… it counts J

Our coach left at 8:30; much too early for most of our liking and resultantly, yet another bus ride was spent in slumber by most of our group. By the time we reached Cardiff, we were in desperate need of some energy. We were therefore happy to find sanctuary in Costa; a nice chain coffee shop that provided us not only with caffeine and breakfast, but access to a hotel lobby and concierge who was very kind in helping us plan out our day.

The first and most obvious stop was made at Cardiff Castle (the first of hopefully many castles to come)! It was a truly spectacular sight and was tons of fun to explore. 

After that, we split into two groups. The three nerdiest of us trekked over to the bay and the Doctor Who Experience, while the others headed to the museum and street shopping area. After a truly cheese-tastic experience that is only to be expected from Doctor Who, we began the trip back to the rest of our group.

We made a slight detour for some more of the bay experience. Unfortunately, this included a bathroom break that resulted in our losing the only member of our group without a UK mobile phone. After Mattie and I searched frantically around the mall, exclaiming all the while that we were horrible parents for our poor baby Rachel, we finally located her wandering around the upper levels.

Setting off again – albeit much later than we had originally intended – we finally reconnected with the rest of our group and retired to a pub nearby while we waited for our time to meet the bus. 4 hours, 2 pizzas, several pints, and some interesting football (soccer) musings later, we eventually made our way indirectly to the bus stop.

When we had finally arrived back in Bristol, we walked home a reluctant Katrina – who couldn’t understand why we didn’t want her to make the 30 minute trek at nearly midnight on Saturday by herself. After another brief detour to meet some of her flatmates and observe (without any understanding) their poker game, we finally made it back to the heart of Bristol where we resigned to our respective houses and understood with full certainty that we were about to get a very good night's sleep.

Because she truly is awesome, here is Rachel's video of the day! She captures it so much better than I could in my million words :P

If that simply wasn't enough Rachel awesome-ness for you, here's the link to her blog of Cardiff :)

Ye Olde Oxfordshire

8 February, 2014

My little group of American aliens and I were lucky enough to find a group on campus that’s dedicated to foreign students. Often times they will organize trips to commonly frequented areas of the country (or of continental Europe!) and offer them to members of the group at a great price. So naturally, when the opportunity arose to visit Oxford, we jumped at the chance.

Our bus coach departed quite early in the morning, so the ride over there consisted mostly of a mass napping session, punctuated by a few waking minutes in which we saw some of the truly horrible flooding that has been plaguing the UK for the last month. 

When we arrived in Oxfordshire, we had to sort out a few navigational hiccups and therefore got to campus a little later than had originally been planned. But before long, we had met up with our scheduled tour guide and were off to see the sights!

Our tour guide started us off with a great history lesson, ending in quite a factual statement that addressed the real reason almost all of us were (or maybe just I was) actually there, “But in all these years of history, by far the most important events have occurred in the last 15 years… some of the Harry Potter movies were filmed here.” 

I know, we laughed too.

After that she took us around to Divinity Hall, the Radcliffe Camera, Christ’s Church and much, much more.

When we were outside of Divinity Hall, she asked, “Does anyone know what this building was used for in the Harry Potter movies?”

To which I responded immediately and perhaps too excitedly, “The Hospital Wing!”

“Wow… you’re the first person who’s known that right away!”

Yupp… I’m pretty proud of that. I might be making a t-shirt. (joking!)

Another fun fact about Oxford; it was the home of JRR Tolkein and CS Lewis, who were actually friends and discussed their books with each other whilst in the city. 

Back in the day, the two authors made their great friendship official and named it the Inkling’s writers’ group. The club met in the Eagle and Child pub’s private ‘Rabbit Room’ every Tuesday to discuss their work. Apparently there is now a club on the Oxford campus called the Inkling’s writers’ group that still meets in that pub on Tuesdays.

We were fortunate enough to actually go into the pub for a pint and, creepy pub sign aside, it was actually a pretty fun place.

After our quick pit stop, it was back to the bus.

Did I mention flooding? I mean, this was hardly a flood, but it does kinda show how bad it was other places.

On our way back, the bus broke down no less than 4 times and, at one point, we had to wait for another coach to come pick us up. It really wasn’t that bad, but became more of a joke between the exhausted passengers every time we had to pull over. What really matters is that we got home safely and were able to collapse into bed with great memories from a truly amazing day.

The Headquarters of My English Shenanigans

Bristol.

The headquarters of my English experience from this point forward.

The city I now call my temporary home.

The land I love.

… Though, let’s be honest… I’m only here because apparently ‘studying abroad’ includes actual studying… who knew! If it weren't for that minor detail, I would have no headquarters for my European shenanigans, but I am not complaining. I really have come to call this city home and it’s been truly great!

What makes it so great you ask? Let’s just start with the fact that my daily walk to classes, the grocery store, etc. now includes views like this:

 Wills Memorial Building (central campus)

Royal Fort Lodge 

(unfortunately surrounded by construction... sorry for the fence)

… like, no big deal! I just go to school in a castle. It’s whatever. 

I swear I’m just going to get used to gorgeous buildings like these and have withdrawals when I head back to the states.

Okay, so besides the truly amazing view that I can’t believe is now casually apart of my daily life, the people here are great. I live in a shared house with 15 other people. Obviously, coming into this, I was a little worried about how I would be received – barging in halfway through the year and whatnot – but I can honestly say that it has been amazing. Everyone here is so nice and welcoming. I've been here just over a month and we’re already a big family J The house is also super international. So, apart from the amazing Brits I was already expecting, we also represent Venezuela, Romania, Canada, Vietnam, China, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. Needless to say, the Winter Olympics were well timed in my life. Fun little rivalries have been running rampant for the last few weeks J

The city is just great overall. I love the buildings, the people, and the fellow Californians from EAP I still hang out with all the time. Need I say more?