Bath and Stonehenge!

Hello Everyone!!

Well, not too much is new. I got sick last week and had to stay home in bed for two days, which was no fun at all. It is so much better to be sick when you have somewhere to lounge around other than your bedroom! But thanks to Auntie Lori and Auntie Nancy's generous donation of Zicam (which the English don't sell, apparently. I got the weirdest look from the guy at the pharmacy when I asked for it!), I am back to feeling like myself again!

This weekend, we had an AMAZING weekend in Bath! We had such a fantastic time! After waking up at 7 on Saturday mroning (ugh.) we left around 8 am and took a three hour bus ride to Stonehenge! We spent about 45 minutes at Stonehenge, which is really all the time you need to walk around some rocks and take pictures. Stonehenge itself is beautiful, and having been so close to it, I have absolutely no idea how those people built it without modern tractors, crane lifts, etc! We couldn't actually go up and walk through the rocks, since there was a rope about 20 feet or so from the actual structure. I'm assuming this is so that a) people can actually get decent pictures of it without millions of people milling about in between the rocks, and b) stupid teenage boys don't go trying to knock it down. It definitely makes sense. There is a gift shop there, too, so we spent a little while milling around the gift shop, although I didn't get anything. I've decided that instead of buying souvenirs on this trip,  I'll buy a sticker everywhere I go and stick it on my clean canteen so that when I come back, I'll have a collage of all of the places I've been on my water bottle! Plus, it saves a whole bunch of money!

When we were all Stonehenged-out, we got back on the bus and drove for about an hour to the town of Bath, which is officially one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen. Everything is made of the same kind of rock, and it is all beautiful! There is an amazing Abbey in the middle of the city, and next to it are the Roman Baths, where Bath got its name from. The city of Bath sits upon a natural hot spring, and during the time when England was part of the Roman Empire, the Romans created a series of baths from the hot spring. They made steam rooms, saunas, hot tubs, etc. and the rich would spend time there to relax. Some of the original structures still are there, and we were lucky enough to get to see them! So cool! When we finished taking a tour of the baths, we headed out to find some food. While we were searching for a good place to eat, we came across these street musicians (Bath is FULL of amazing musicians just playing on the streets for money!) who recorded their own music right there in the street! One guy would beat-box into the microphone and record it, then add layers on top of saxophone and another guy would rap to it. They were unbelievable! I've never seen anything like it! We found a pasty shop right next to them and ate our pasties while listening to them. (By the way: Pasties are the best invention ever. They are very English. Basically, it's a puff pastry shell with cheese and potato and meat and veggies inside. SO GOOD!!!! ) We spent the rest of the afternoon people watching before heading to our hotel in Bristol.

We stayed at the Holiday Inn in Bristol, which was really nice! It felt amazing to sleep in a bed that I couldn't feel the springs through! We had a 3 course dinner at the hotel, which was really nice, and went for a swim in the indoor pool later that night!

The next morning, we headed back to Bath for another few hours. My friends and I decided to go to the Jane Austen Centre, which is a museum all about Jane Austen, who lived in Bath. It was really interesting! After the tour was over, we went upstairs in the centre to have a proper English tea party! My inner 6 year old was ecstatic!! We sat down at this lovely table and chose our teas, and they brought us cucumber sandwiches, cakes, and scones! Needless to say, we were all stuffed by the time we left! But we had so much fun drinking tea and feeling proper! I hope I get to do that again before I leave England! I have to admit, I didn't like tea before I came here, but the English have turned me into a tea fiend! I LOVE IT!!! When we had finished our tea, we walked up the street and saw the house where Jane Austen lived! We didn't get to go inside or anything. They actually don't make a very big deal about it, because the house has been turned into a dentist's office, but it was still cool to see. After that, we headed home. I was exhausted, so I slept most of the 3 hour drive. It was a great weekend!!!

Other than that, nothing too exciting is going on! We go to Paris in two weeks, which will be AMAZING!!! I am SO EXCITED!!!

Stonehenge!

The Roman Baths!

While looking around the gift shop at the Roman Baths, I found "Harrius Potter" which I can only assume is Harry Potter in Latin!

The Abbey in Bath

Another picture of the Abbey. So beautiful!

The River that flows right through Bath

I just really liked these archways

Our Tea table! Those are cucumber sandwiches on the three tiered tray!

We had "Tea with Mr. Darcy" :)

Our Cakes! Yum!

My friend Jeehyun and I at Stonehenge!

Things I'm Loving: Afternoon tea, tea in general, cucumber sandwiches, pasties, starting to travel around more, not having a problem understanding accents as much.

Things I'm Not Loving So Much: Being away from my mom on her birthday, the fact that I'm really bad at remembering to take pictures, being sick this week.

Things I'm Learning: English medicine is SO not as good as American medicine, the further along I get in this semester, the less reading I want to do.

British to American Dictionary:

Knackered: Really, really tired. (I had ABSOLUTELY no idea what my friend Helena was talking about when she said this.)

Also: the English flip each other off by putting their pointer and middle fingers up with the back of the hand towards the other person. Just a fun fact :)

I'm sure I'll be writing again soon!! Miss you all!!
Love,
Jenn