Opera, Bath and Beyond!

Well, I've officially been to an Opera. La Boheme was pretty cool. The singing was really amazing, but I was surprised by how short the four acts were. Our seats were about 20 rows from the pit, which was neato. I definitely want to see an opera in a bigger and grander theatre before I decide if I like it or not...

Bath was really, really nice. We got up around 7am, took a bus at 8, a train at 8:30, another train at 9:12, and arrived around 10 in Bath. First, a good bunch of the group walked all around Bath until we made it to the northern edge to see The Royal Crescent, a magnificent residential feat. It was drizzling a little bit, but still sunny, so we ended up seeing a double rainbow behind the building...really lovely. Jules and I then broke off from the group and decided to just do whatever we wanted for the rest of the day.


We started by walked back towards the city center by way of these really pretty gardens. (Bath is a very lush, green place). For a few hours, we just meandered around Bath, walking by the river Avon, and snapping some georgeous pictures of Bath Abbey from the riverbanks (see below).

After a few hours we were really hungry, and decided we wanted to try to find some Thai food, since Jules hadn't tried it before. Unfortunately the restaurants weren't really open yet, so we settled on a fish & chips hole-in-the-wall place I had read about last week, called, of all things, "Fish & Chips." DEE-LI-CIOUS. the most fat every consumed at one time, but, delicious. We got our food to go and went back to a square right outside of the Roman Baths, sat on a park bench, and ate our glorious mound of fat. There was a very scruffy man in the courtyard singing american classics like "Country Road" and "Brown Eyed Girl"...we were very fond of him.

Post heartattack-enducing-food-consumption, we decided to take a tour of the Roman Baths. These were pretty cool. So ancient, such a natural phenomenon (the water really WAS warm! I touched it!). Great architecture, cool history. Can't wait to see roman baths in ROME...not England....

Then, the shopping began. We bought shoes, pashminas, halloween masks, chocolates...all kinds of fun things. It rained on us a little, but we didn't mind--it forced us into a covered market for some more shopping!

Then we headed into Bath Abbey, which was really stunning. There were so many windows, so much light. Just look at these photos--really amazing. We took a few minutes to just sit in the pews and people watch. Very pleasant.

After the Abbey, we decided to get some tea at "Sally Lunn's Bun shop" the oldest tea house in Bath. It was great! The cream tea was marvelous and I had a cinnamon bun that was the size of my face...so much for not getting fat while I study abroad....

And, surprisingly, we did all these things by about 3:30pm. Since our day had been so packed, we decided to call it quits and head home on the 4:40 train. Got back to Oxford around 7pm. Fun, relaxing, neat...I'm definitely going to visit other cities around England while I'm here.

Next weekend...London!