Last Sunday, I took a day trip to Bath and the Cotswolds. It was amazing! The weather was cold and rainy, but we managed to stay out of it most of the day. Our first stop was this traditional village called Castle Combe (pronounced "coom"). What a beautiful village!
We were able to spend about 45 minutes or so walking through the village. There was a beautiful church and tons of residential areas. One of the houses had biscuits for sale on a little table outside their front door. It was adorable. The houses seemed to be miniaturized. The doors were just slightly taller than me, so most men would have to duck to go inside.
Wouldn't it be nice if hotels in the US looked like this? I'm a complete sucker for hanging flowers, by the way. I will probably do that (and/or have flowers in a windowsill) when I get a house of my own.
After we wandered around the village, we piled back into the mini bus and drove to Bath, where we were able to spend 3 hours or so.
This is Bath Abbey -- so beautiful! We took a self-led walking tour of the Abbey.
Yours truly in front of Bath Abbey. If you look carefully behind me, you can see angels climbing up a ladder on either side of the window. Those really intrigued me.
The inside of Bath Abbey. This is a view of the West Window (it was even more impressive in real life!), which shows scenes from the Old Testament. The organist was playing while were there, which made the experience even better.
Afterwards, we visited the Roman Baths.
The baths were really great. You could see the steam rising from them (like I said before, it was cold and rainy) and there were statues looking over the Great Bath. The temple was begun in 60AD and the bathing complex was built up over the next 300 years. It was modified in the 12th and 16th centuries and is now housed in an 18th century building. It was incredible standing there because I felt like I was in history.
Water from the Baths is filtered to this drinking fountain. A glass of it came complimentary with our entrance fee. And no surprise -- it wasn't very tasty.
As usual, Monday was filled with classes. Yawn. But that night I went out with friends, which was fun. I played a few games of pool (I must say that I'm pretty good at it) and challenged Kevin to a few rounds of a race car arcade game. Luckily, you don't drive in the left hand lane (or on the right side of the car) in the game, because then I definitely would have ended up in last place. The night didn't end so well, partially because I lost my camera. But thankfully, the only pictures I lost were from that evening. Anyway, I looked everywhere for it and I'm pretty sure someone nicked it from the bar (that'll teach me). I bought a new camera right before our next day trip because I know that I can't survive here without one. Spending that kind of money on a stupid mistake is not a happy subject, so I'm moving on.
The next interesting thing I did was go out with friends to see a show on Thursday. We were going to see Oliver, but it was sold out. I'd still like to see Rowan Atkinson as Fagin, but we'll see if it works out. Instead, we all decided on Chicago! The show was incredible. It was pretty funny to hear them try to do American accents (imagine this: a bit of general American, a bit of Chicago, a bit of Southern, and a bit of an English accent peeking through). The performance itself was amazing. Seeing it live makes you really appreciate the physicality of the dancing in the show. I was more than impressed with the woman that played Roxie (I've got to say, I was never all that enthused with Renee Zellweger). What an amazing singer and dancer! The show was a great experience.
Later on Thursday night, my friend Vanessa came over for brownie therapy. If there's ever a problem in life, baking (especially brownies), can cure it. We made the most delicious imported brownies (thank you, Mom). I think they tasted better simply because they were "imported." Needless to say, they're completely gone by now. I had to be coerced into sharing with other people besides Vanessa and Kevin. Yum yum!!
Friday marks the return of pictures into my life. To mark the impending monthiversary of our time here in London, Kevin and I decided to hold an "Americana!" party. We made hot dogs, hamburgers, and french fries, decorated the house with red white and blue balloons, and invited a bunch of friends over to share in the fun.
Our song playlist had only American artists and all of the songs that included place names ("New York, New York," "Route 66," etc.) obviously incited a sing along. We invited American friends and a bunch of British friends we've met over our time here.
Vanessa and I at the party -- the carnage behind us is my kitchen. ;)
The party was a big success -- a bunch of people came for dinner and about 25 others came afterwards for the party. The English people liked being introduced to flip cup and beer pong, too. All in all, a great party. I think the next one (which someone else has agreed to host) is Mexicana. =)
That night I had to leave the party a few times to run some trumpet meetings back home. I ended up staying up until around 5am to talk to all the different classes about next year. It was definitely worth it because the meetings went well, but having to get up early the next morning was a bit taxing.
On Saturday morning, I woke up to go on a USC-funded trip to Stonehenge and Salisbury. A bunch of my friends here are from USC, so it was pretty fun to hang out with them there.
Stonehenge was great. I had Eddie Izzard's sketch stuck in my head the whole time. In all, it was "whelming." Not overwhelming, not underwhelming, just whelming. Almost exactly what I expected it to be: something I needed to see at some point in my life, but also not somewhere that I'd want to spend more than an hour (plus, it was freezing).
After Stonehenge, we drove to Salisbury. I did not have a steak for lunch, but I did have some excellent pizza! (We didn't see any advertisements for steak, otherwise I would have been tempted)
This is the best picture of the outside of Salisbury Cathedral that I was able to take. It was absolutely breathtaking, but there was some construction going on, so I couldn't get the whole cathedral in the picture without some scaffolding. I encourage you to look for pictures of Salisbury Cathedral online, though. It has the tallest spire in Britain and was built in 38 years, finishing in 1258. The most amazing part to me is that they still hold services.
The inside of the cathedral. It was astounding in its simplicity and beauty. Magnificent, really. It's been my favorite cathedral so far (even though I've only seen two here...).
We were also able to see one of the 4 remaining copies of the Magna Carta, but they didn't allow pictures. It was much smaller than I expected and there were no signatures on it that I could see. But there were translations nearby and it was really interesting to be able to see such an influential (and old!) document in person.
And on Sunday, she rested. But actually, I think I might see if anything fun is happening tonight (besides the fact that it's snowing!!!). If not, it looks like leftover burgers for me, haha!
No comments:
Post a Comment