Baath

BAATH (this is they way they pronounce it. You will be made fun of if you try and do otherwise)

This weekend, we traveled by train to Bath. It took about 1 ½ hours, and we arrived in the city around 10:30 Saturday morning. Upon arrival, we learned that we could not check into our room at the University of Bath until 2pm. So to kill some time, what else should we do but shop and eat! We went to several stores in town, and it was one of our most successful shopping ventures yet. We found two items that we had searched for in London but had been previously unable to find. Mind you, we were carrying our luggage on our backs and it was a rather warm morning. So after a bit of shopping, we decided to find a place to sit and rest. We had sandwiches, tea and scones at a tea room recommended in one of our guide books, despite the fact that it was only around 12pm…not exactly tea time but Suze was in need of caffeine. We then hit the markets, which were quite a disappointment. Next, we took the bus to our accommodation on the outskirts of the city. We checked into our room on campus, and were pleased to see that we had several amenities such as coffee and tea for breakfast, a hairdryer, and a tv. After dropping off our stuff and freshening up a bit, we headed back into town. We decided to go eat at a famous residence of Sally Lunn, who is simply famous for her creation of the Sally Lunn bun. The bun can be sweet or savory, and is so huge that they usually just sell half at a time. Suze had one with cinnamon on top, and Bekah had the traditional one with clotted cream and strawberry jam. Both were delicious especially with a pot of tea, to which we both seem to have become addicted. After our snack, we explored the Royal Cresent and the Circus – residences that were built hundreds of years ago in the typical Georgian design for which Bath is famous. Almost all the buildings in Bath are built in this style with the same color stone, making it a very uniform city. During the afternoon, we sat in the park and people watched. There were some very interesting people in the park, as it was a beautiful, sunny Saturday with temperatures somewhere in the early 20s Celsius. The people here seem to think that is HOT despite the fact that those temperatures in Fahrenheit are somewhere in the 70’s. We were particularly intrigued by this group of guys playing football, or soccer as we call it. They were dressed in all sorts of outrageous manner, not the least of which involved hot pink stirrup leggings with a matching hot pink tank top. After our rest in the park, we went to have drinks and dinner before heading to our room for the night. Coincidentally, the weekend that we were at the Uni was their prom night! They had all manner of after parties set up on campus that night. We could hear them up into all hours of the night. But it seemed a good time was had by all.
On Sunday, we slept in a bit. We had learned that the accommodation office on campus would hold our bags for us so that luckily we did not have to carry them around all day. However the office did not open until ten. We were there waiting before they opened, dropped our bags off, and hopped on the bus back into town. We went in search of a traditional English breakfast. This is a fried breakfast which consists of fried egg, sausage link, ham or bacon, toast, a half a grilled tomato, sautéed mushrooms, and baked beans! That’s right…BAKED BEANS…like the kind you would eat with a hamburger at a cookout. We found a place to eat. Suze tried to get the beans on the side as she does not like them in the States and feared they would not be to her taste. However, the lady did not seem to know how to do this so Suze went without the beans so they did not contaminate the rest of her food. We were able to sit outside for our meal, and the weather was quite pleasant. After breakfast, it was time to see THE BATH from which the city gets its name. Bath is built around the ancient Roman baths and the Bath Abbey. The bath has been there since the early first century A.D when the Roman Empire ruled. It was a place of worship to the goddess Minerva as well as a fitness center and a place to do business or just have a bath. It was built around a natural spring, which was believed to flow with healing waters. The Romans designed a clever piping system to ensure that the bath would always be full of clean spring water. There are many rooms in the bath, and when the bath was fully operating, each section of the bath would have contained water at different temperatures to optimize bathing, swimming, and spa needs. You cannot get in the bath, however, as the water is not safe. It is quite green and murky now; though we were assured that during its heyday the water would have been fresh and sparkling. After our tour of the bath, we stopped for pudding and, you guessed it, tea at the Pump Room, a classy restaurant attached to the bath. The pudding was made from bath bun, they sure do love their buns in Bath, and was served with clotted cream ice cream. The dessert was the consistency of bread pudding. Neither of us cared for the taste of the pudding too much, but we both were in agreement that the ice cream was nice. After our snack, we headed to another bus that would bring us to visit Stonehenge. This is something that Bekah, especially, was interested in but we didn’t think we were going to get to do. We hopped on a purple bus driven by our tour guide Dan and set out on our three hour tour (and no, the Skipper was not there). On the drive, we got to see some of the beautiful English countryside. We also saw some other sites along the way. Hundreds of years ago, wealthy British landowners would carve huge drawings into the hillsides. This was made possible by the white limestone that lies shallowly beneath the vegetation on the hills. We saw a gigantic white horse carving but did not get close enough to take a picture. We also saw thatched roof houses along the way. As we approached the area where Stonehenge is, close to Salisbury for all you geography buffs, we began to see signs that say “tank crossing”. This is because much of the land in this area is now owned by the Department of Defense. After passing a field of sheep, we came upon the stones. Stonehenge is mysterious and monolithic, breathtaking and beautiful. The ancient structure, purported to be more than 4,000 years old, is roped off and no one can get close enough to touch it. However, this allows for excellent picture taking without Joe Tourist blocking your view. We walked around the structure with a handheld audio guide and listened to the theories and conjecture about what the stones are doing there and how they got there. In short, no one really knows. They do know that the shape of the structure correlates perfectly with the summer solstice. After our self guided tour, we got back on the bus and returned to Bath. We went back to the Uni to collect our belongings, ate jacket potatoes for dinner, and jumped on the train back to Putney.

Words of the blog:
Pudding – British word for dessert; Nice – used to say if something is delicious. In a sentence: see paragraph above
Uni – University. In a sentence: what Uni are you from?