Bath (or, if you're English, bAAAAAAAth)

Got up Monday morning (December 23) and checked out of the hostel - this is the hostel from the outside by the way - it was, I think, a converted courthouse and quite an impressive building from the outside. I think you could actually stay in converted jail cells as well, but they cost a considerable amount more than my little sardine-style room.

Headed out from King's Cross tube station to Paddington Station, where I caught the train to Bath. It was about an hour and a half trip, though the train was delayed a bit due to inclement weather. It was absoloutly pouring when I arrived, so I decided to get a cab up to the hotel where Aunt Carol was staying, where I met up with her, Megan, Samantha (my cousins), and Sam's fiancé, Richard. Carol elected to stay at the hotel for the night, so the rest of us headed back to the pub, where we spent the night hanging around in the flat upstairs, and also met Tom, Sam's business partner.

The next morning Megan and I got up bright and early-ish and headed out for brunch in Bath, before wandering around the (very small) downtown. It was Christmas Eve, so pretty much nothing was open, but I got a good look at the outside of places, and peered over a wall on my tiptoes into the Roman Baths.

The Bath Abbey is a really gorgeous building. And right next door (the building on the right in this picture) is the Roman Baths.

Roman Baths. The Roman Baths complex is a site of historical interest in the English city of Bath. The house is a well-preserved Roman site for public bathing. The Roman Baths themselves are below the modern street level. There are four main features: the Sacred Spring, the Roman Temple, the Roman Bath House and the Museum holding finds from Roman Bath. The buildings above street level date from the 19th century.

The first shrine at the site of the hot springs was built by Celts, and was dedicated to the goddess Sulis, whom the Romans identified with Minerva. The name Sulis continued to be used after the Roman invasion, leading to the town's Roman name of Aquae Sulis ("the waters of Sulis"). The temple was constructed in 60-70 AD and the bathing complex was gradually built up over the next 300 years.

Considering how hard it had been raining the day before, it was a gorgeous day out, though a bit cold.

The Abbey Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Bath, commonly known as Bath Abbey, is an Anglican parish church and a former Benedictine monastery in Bath, Somerset, England. Founded in the 7th century, Bath Abbey was reorganised in the 10th century and rebuilt in the 12th and 16th centuries; major restoration work was carried out by Sir George Gilbert Scott in the 1860s. It is one of the largest examples of Perpendicular Gothic architecture in the West Country.

Candid shot of Megan and the Roman Bath (apparently it is singular).

The downtown of Bath really is quite lovely.

Megan and I *might* have taken a large number of selfies together over our trip. *Maybe*

But hey, Roman Centurion! With bonus tinsel!

There was a small amount of flooding in the area due to the heavy rainfall and storms most of Britain has been experiencing lately. Which is super fun, let me tell you.

I'm going to do Christmas Day in a separate post, but chronologically, it goes HERE.

Boxing Day, Megan, Carol, and I wandered down into downtown Bath for a very, very late breakfast (like, 2pm late - I was a bit confused when we walked in and the waitress asked if we were eating or just drinking because I was like who on earth would just be drinking so early, then I realized... not that early).

I love the little doors. Apparently they're just storage/delivery, which is boring, but they look super cool!

After "breakfast" we went for a walk - we were trying to find a high place from which to look down at Bath, which is situated between seven hills, but google maps led us astray and we just ended up wandering around for a bit...

Saw this squirrel sitting on a post (which is the most exciting British wildlife I've seen) and I stopped to take a picture of him, but then he started coming at me...

So I ran away. Clearly this is HIS turf.

We did end up finding a lovely park on our walk, which crossed both a canal and a railway line via some pretty cool bridges.

There was also this posh little building inside the park, which our best guess as to its purpose was "rain shelter" but was actually commemorating something (what, exactly, it was commemorating, I cannot remember anymore).

Everyone being tourists (and slightly fuzzy).

Random house in the middle of the park...

Park selfie!

The water had gone down significantly in the two days since last time we crossed the bridge (apparently the bridge is only one of two like it in... the UK? the world? ... that was designed to have shops lining it) so as you cross the bridge there are narrow little shops, and if you aren't paying attention, you wouldn't even know you were crossing water.

The water had also gone down enough to reveal this thing (what is it? Who knows!)

But the park is no longer underwater.

Major tourist.

We had a late, lovely little dinner at the hotel to finish off the day (I sent Logan a picture of this after he sent me the sad salad he was eating, causing him to inform me we were no longer BFFs... </3)

Feel The Burn

As I mentioned in my last post, this Monday morning I got up bright and early and met 28 (or so) of my classmates at school, where we boarded two minibuses and headed north. 

From the website:

It was gifted in 1948 to Goodenough College by the late Mr & Mrs Herbert Russell in memory of their son James, who was killed in action in 1944 aged 21. The Burn is a holiday and study centre for students, graduates and academic staff from around the world.

The house, built in 1791 and now completely modernised, consists of a large drawing room, dining room, library, TV room, indoor games room and has 18 bedrooms and 1 flat. It is centrally heated throughout and during your stay you can look forward to quality cooking with the best home grown ingredients - Chef's Corner.

Standing in 190 acres of park and woodland on the banks of the River North Esk, The Burn affords peace and relaxation for holidays and study in excellent accommodation at low cost, subsidised by the generous Russell legacy.

This little building, separate from the main building, was where eight of us girls stayed, which was pretty awesome, even if we had to go outside for breakfast, because it had more bathrooms per person than the main building (where the bathrooms were undergoing renovation). 

Candice and Kate standing by the main entrance...

Some casual Ming Vases 

I can't quite remember what this building was (they mentioned it when they were talking about previous years visits, but we were too far behind the main group to head the explanation again - I think it was some kind of hunting 'hut' or something).

Some other (shorter) people were able to get the entire circle in the frame of their cameras... but unless I was willing to lie on the ground, that wasn't gonna work for me.

The majority of the photos I took were from a walk we took the first day there, where six of us managed to fall so far behind (taking pictures) on the way back that we managed to miss a turn that the rest of the group took. We were not lost, however, and easily retraced our way back to the house. However, when we arrived we realized that we were the only ones there and were just trying to decide what to do when we spotted one of our lecturers running up - when they realized we had missed the turn, he had run all the way back to attempt to catch up with us - but only managed to catch up to us when we had already arrived back at the house.

But we didn't get lost. The rest of the group did.

Okay, this was really cool (and apparently a one-of-a-kind structure). It was a tunnel built to move cattle from the upper part of the estate to the lower without disturbing guests, and has two air vents along its length.

I got really, really excited when I saw the holly tree.

A really fun trip. Not necessarily the most academically vigorous exercise of my life, but a great deal of fun. It was reading week this week, so we didn't have class (even for those who did not go on the trip) so its not like my learning suffered from my attendance. Lots of bonding and fun activities, and a good chance to hang out with people I had not yet had the opportunity to spend time with!

Plus it was gorgeous. 

We returned Wednesday after several very full days, stopping briefly in Dundee at the headquarters of Scottish publishing house DC Thomson (the house behind famous magazine Beano), where we were given a tour of the actual printing presses, as well as a talk on the operation of the house and a tour of the magazine offices. 

It was very cool, and I was geeking out pretty hard the entire time.