Ah! I've had a full couple of days so this post has been delayed until just the moment when I don't know if I have enough time to finish it before I have to go to bed. We'll see. I'll type fast. First of all, in my last post, I know everyone was worried about how my hair would turn out the next day. It turned out great! So then I tried it the next night and it looked great again but the next day I put it up and then tonight I went for the three-peat and it WORKED! So I've found a fool proof way to blow dry my hair providing I've left enough time between my shower and the time my roommates are going to bed. Anyway, onto bigger and better things!
I bought a Bible. I went into this book store called Brookwells and it has four levels above ground and then it has a basement that spans almost two blocks and there are different levels in the basement and there are probably, no joke, a million books there. It was insane! And my Bible is really cool. It's a charcoal color with bright blue thread around the edge and the same color as the bookmark. It's kind of the same Bible I had before except the pages are thicker and the words are a little bigger. I LOVE IT! I haven't opened it yet...eh. It's on my to do list. Oh! Before I bought the Bible, I went on a tour with this class that goes on tours. We went to one of the colleges in Oxford: New college. It's the newest college built in Oxford and it dates back to the 1800's. It was so amazing. It had a beautiful courtyard and a great hall and amazing dorms and a chapel with a huge organ and those sideways desks/pews and there were gargoyles on the top of the walls. Unfortunately for me, my camera died halfway through the tour and I didn't get pictures of most of the rooms we saw. Even more unfortunate for me: I didn't remember to charge my camera before I went to Bath.
On Saturday morning, a group of nine of us got up at 7:30 and made it to the train station and went to Bath for the day. It was freezing! And it was Beautiful! We went to the Roman baths, of course. Everything was below ground and there were all these beautiful stone remnants with faces of gods on them and old tools and the bathing rooms were preserved and there were all these models of how the baths used to look next to the temples and with the surrounding buildings. Oh, it was gorgeous! And after that, we went and got some food at a pub called the Saracen's head. I feel like a broken record, but it was so good! After that is when the day got really interesting though...get ready. On the trip were 8 girls, including me, and one guy. The girls, not including me, wanted to go to the fashion museum and then walk over to Jane Austen's house and see that. Well, the guy didn't want to do any of that either, so he and I split from the rest of the group and walked around the city. First, we went into the Abby which was so beautiful on the inside I can't even begin to convey it. The ceilings were high and vaulted with waves in the stone to make it look like different layers made it up to the top and every few feet there was a different coat of arms on a shield. The sides were covered in stained glass windows that had a different picture in each frame and at the front of the building, the window rose all the way to the top with saints in every frame. There was an organ that took up 2/3 of on of the sections of wall and below it were 5 sets of angels holding instruments and 'playing' songs. The floors were covered in blessings of people who had passed and in one room there was a book with a list of names to be prayed over from WWI. It was so incredible.
Then, we bought a map and walked over to where the circus is. I don't really know what to call it, I guess neighborhood would be the closest thing. There is a circle of houses cut down the middle and then on one of the sides. The buildings are all curved and they're all four stories tall with basements as well. In the center, there's a huge grassy area with 3 gigantic trees that are crazy old. They were dead, since it's winter, but pictures of them in the summer look amazing. After that, it's a straight shot down one of the roads to the royal crescent which is basically exactly what it sounds like. More curved buildings but this time just in a large crescent shape with a huge grassy hill in front. It's pretty long though, so it took us a while to walk around it. After that, we walked around the back of the buildings and we thought we saw a castle. So we started making our way toward that. We turned onto this street and all of a sudden I felt like I would need gravity boots. The road was, I really want to say, like a 75% incline and it went on FOREVER! I actually thought I was going to die. Well, we finally got to flat ground and realized we were at a dead end! So we walked back down and I tried to persuade my friend to find another less hilly route to a church nearby but he looked right at the map and found another way up to the castle. So we went that way. He was so excited, I just couldn't tell him that he might have to carry my corpse back down the hill. So we walked, same incline, and it went on even longer this time! Finally we reached the tower and realized...it was a church! Not a castle! And it was locked! So, I'm feeling pretty upset right now, I just walked all this way for no reason! So I said, "Man, it's locked." and my friend says, "I know! Now I can't see what year it was built...we can still walk around the outside though." He was so excited that I just couldn't crush his spirit. So we walked in circles around this closed church building. Then we walked back down a different road than the one we came up, had to ask for directions, found a crazy stairway through a park and took that, then walked down a road for a while and found our way back to the main square and saw the famous bridge. That was amazing. Of course, I was just happy to be standing still for a second while we looked at the arches and the man-made waterfall things. After that it was just a lot of walking around until we caught the train back and headed straight to bed! I did the math today; turns out, on my travels, I walked out of the city of Bath and that combined with everything else added up to 12 miles that I walked yesterday. My feet still hurt at little.
Today (Sunday) wasn't bad. I woke up too late for Church which was a bummer as I wanted to go. I decided to walk down to this French pastry shop and get some breakfast. I had a cinnamon danish. Oh my gosh, people. It was so good! We tried to go back at 4 and get some dessert for the dinner we were making, but they were closed! Everything closes so early on Sundays and even during the week, generally nothing but pubs are open past 7. Anyway, we made a big dinner and some of the guys that live upstairs in our house came. My roommate made some kind of pasta and one of the guys made bruschetta. I don't know if that's how you spell it but, I right clicked and it didn't give me any other options so...that's what I'm going with. Whew! That took about as long as I thought it would. And I was right, I should be sleeping right now because both of my roommates are and I feel like I'm being too loud! I think I've got an exciting week coming up. And I charged my camera! I mean, I probably still won't post pictures but at least you know I might be taking some!
No comments:
Post a Comment