February 17, 2012 (My Mum's Birthday)

Avebury, just enjoying years of hard labor thanks to the Druids.

Here begins a two day trip we took over Friday and Saturday.  We started off bright and early with a fantastically long 2 hour bus trip to Avebury (and this bus driver was different than our last one.  While the last one was famous and besties with Beckham and Posh this one liked to smoke and seemed to only prefer it when the bus smelled like his cigarettes.  Something we soon discovered when the second we’d park at any stop he’d immediately light up with a sneer on his face and retreat into his quiet, empty bus free of loud American girls).  The first stop was to Avebury, which is the largest Neolithic circle in Europe and the oldest stone ring in the world (from around 2600 BC) .  Basically it’s a larger and more widespread version of Stonehenge.  It’s still unknown what it was used for and how they got the stones to this location, but they had to be moved two miles from their quarry to this spot and the stones are over 65 tons!  Oh, and there used to be 154 stones, but now there are only 36.  Why, you ask?  Well because some stupid pagans were freaked out by the awesomeness of the stone circles and tried to destroy them, by chipping them away or burying them.  Some people just have to spoil the fun for everyone else.  So now where all those 118 stones used to be, there are these funky little short rectangular stones marking their location.  Kinda ruined the whole pagan/Neolithic feel I was going for.

There are actually three circles of stones in Avebury- this is just one of them

But still, Avebury was fantastic and a great stop on our trip.  No one else was there, so we had the great stone circles to ourselves for our brief stop.  They were enclosed by a small wooden gate surrounding the area, but you’re allowed to go in and walk among the stones.  I can’t imagine how people were able to move these huge stones, especially without the technology we have today – and they moved 154 of them!  Those dedicated little druids.  I’m so glad I live in a time where they don’t make us move huge stones as a part of a religious ceremony or whatever they were for.  I’ll stick with 3 hours of church on Sundays.  Much easier.

Pretty dang huge, oh and there's one of the fake placement ones behind me.  Lame.

Next up was Bath, in Somerset (an hour long bus drive- yay!  more time with my favorite bus smoker!).  We were able to walk through the ancient Roman bath houses and see the “Grand Pump Room” (yes, it’s really called that).  Surrounding the Roman baths was a museum that had artifacts from Roman Bath times and gave you fun background information on the baths.  One of my favorite little tidbits of information they gave was that back in Roman times in Bath they would write down curses to give to the goddess to curse people who had stolen a ring, cup, or other trifling items.  They’d scratch down a curse (usually using lots of explicative’s, asking the goddess to basically maim this thief in any way possible), and chuck it into the baths.  I think it’d be an awful shock if you were swimming in the baths, minding your own business, enjoying the hot green water, and a creepy curse floated up next to you, saying that the thief who stole their cape was going to have to pay for it in their own blood.  Oh, those passionate Romans. 

A bird's-eye view of the largest bath.  In all it's green glory.

Oh, and just a side bit of interesting information – Jane Austen moved to Bath in her 20’s and couldn’t stand the place.   I still can’t understand why?  I mean, who wouldn’t want to live in a city dominated by smoking green baths full of rotting algae and yellow poison toxins?  Oh, Jane.

See that yellow nastiness around the edge?  Yeah, that's the toxins.
Maybe they help exfoliate or something...
And you can see the steam over the water.

K, click on this to see the yellow nastiness up closer...if you dare.

The baths were pretty nasty.  They’re a foul green color with yellow spots floating over the top of the water.  Our guide told us not to touch the water, because it’s pretty dang contaminated.  No kidding.  One cool area was this one bath where people now throw coins in to make wishes.  The bath is in a dark room but when the sunlight came through the entrance you could see the water sparkle, feet deep full of coins.  And yes, I definitely did throw a coin in, and I’m not going to say anything, but my wish may have had something to do with a certain smoker having an epiphany and deciding to quit smoking…

Coin pool.

At least the green pool makes artistic reflections.  That's the Abbey in the background.

We got to walk around the city of Bath a bit and were able to see the Royal Crescent (a great example of Gregorian architecture), and then went to the Fashion Museum, which was not all that cool (just filled with a couple ancient outfits), but did have sweet corsets and hoop skirts to try on.  I really was born into the wrong era, my body was MADE for one of those hoop skirts.  They did wonders for my hips.

The Royal Crescent

A side of the Royal Crescent.  Very royal.

Hoop skirt.  These definitely need to come back into fashion.

Then, back on the blessed bus (no, my wish did not come true.  Dumb Romans) and off to Wales!  Wales is absolutely stunning.  I’m not quite sure any more why I chose to do a study abroad in London instead of Wales...there are sheep pastures every mile or so, moss everywhere, and ivy covering the trees.  It was all so green and beautiful.  We hit lots of traffic (I blame the smelly driver) and only had one hour to explore the amazing Welsh Museum, which was more like a Welsh Garden Museum.  It was filled with streams, ancient architecture, hundreds of trees, and small areas with benches and nature to explore.  Definitely wish we could’ve had more time there.

One of the coolest trees I've met in Wales

Wales- where ivy grows on all the trees and sheep romantically pose in the background

Ahhh...so artistic

So apparently this was a Welsh castle...?

After the museum we dropped our stuff off at the hotel (this time it was a sketchy hotel, the type I’m used to, not an adorable B&B like in Stratford) and went out to dinner at a pub.  I love going to pubs and just watching the locals.  We had a lot of fun watching the drunkys become best friends with each other and stumble around, yelling in Welsh.  A very cultural experience.

A TERRIBLE picture of the pub we went to.