Wrinkles

Waking up (too early) on another beautiful day in England. Since I've officially run out of cereal in my room, I'm going down to a coffee shop for breakfast and to camp out doing homework basically all day. But I wanted to give a quick update before I sell my soul to fourteenth-century British literature.

Yesterday was, in a nutshell, a whirlwind. The trip has been organized so that if we want to go somewhere apart from the rest of the group, it's up to us to find transportation, things to do, places to eat, etc. That's a huge step in my independence, as most of my travelling has been with my family with my dad leading the way with his internal pilot GPS. But when it was suggested that we go to Bath for the day, we were responsible to figure out the train system, buy tickets, make the right connections, and remember where the train station was.

All of which we did pretty well. Win.

We left Saturday morning around 8.30 and walked (forever) to the train station, then successfully navigated the stations and switches to downtown Bath. It's an old spa town with Roman baths where people used to vacation and "take the waters" because of its health benefits. The Romans have gone but they've left a heavy Italian influence, so I had to pinch myself and remember that all of that beautiful architecture, gelato, and legit pizza was in the middle of England - we were nowhere near Italia.

It was about 11.30 when we got there, and the general agreement was that we search out FOOD. Because we are cheap (and very American), we checked out a pizza place and split two pizzas and some of the best garlic bread I've ever had. From there we hiked up to the Jane Austen museum. Darling Jane spent some time there in her youth, loved it, and actually set a few of her novels there (don't ask me to say which one because I haven't read any, I was with a lot of Austen fans and they were all geeking out over it).

Let me refer to a much older entry for a moment. I love literature. Like, LOVE IT. I will forego dinner if it means spending money on another book. And I'm alright with romances - I enjoy a good chick flick every now and then, and I've spent way too much of my lifetime watching "Say Yes to the Dress" and pinning wedding ideas on my Pinterest. But I despise....that doesn't even cover it: I abhor, detest, loathe, abominate, scorn Jane Austen's writing. I had to read Pride and Prejudice for a class, and literally it was the longest and most boring endeavor of my life. I don't have time to read about how Lady So-and-so and Mrs. So-and-so walked from this room into that one, then spent the next eighty pages in this room talking about men and money. I understand that this is a huge mark against my womanhood that I prefer Dickens to Austen, but I really don't get the warm fuzzy feeling that a lot of my friends have for Jane. I'm sure there's something to be admired in her back story, that she overcome horrible gender oppression to become this popular writer (yeah, after she died), that she's an inspiration to the hopeless romantic in all (most) of us. But I have completely missed the boat. I'll take a good comedy (Wonder Boys), adventure (Captains Courageous), romance (I appreciate Anna Karenina because it doesn't have a happy ending, it's more realistic - affairs tear families apart, that's just how it works). But I hate that description-driven, long-winded, have-some-tea-in-the-parlor-for-40-a-year nonsense.

All that to say, the museum was really cool, and we got to dress up in period clothing at the end of it. Because there should never be a point when anyone says, "I'm too old to dress up in a ridiculous costume."

This whole trip I've been dying for a milkshake (milkshakes and Reuben sandwiches are my go-to...oddly enough), so we hiked back down to the main part of Bath and drank milkshakes (actually a "gelatashake" make with gelato. Mine was tiramisu. And it made my heart sing) across from this big open square in front of a cathedral, where street musicians were performing. There was one lady singing opera a capella. To hear her voice reverberating off the walls of this massive cathedral, and to see a square full of tourists and locals sitting and listening to her...it was incredible, and I seriously could have sat there all day.

Except everyone else said "let's go look at this other Austen-related thing" and off we went again to this huge circle of apartments. Someone in a Jane Austen book ran up and down this road looking for her love, so of course we had to go see it. (My friend asked me, "So...we're going to look at a road?" For the sake of stinkin' Jane, of course we are!!) The circle was actually awesome, there was this massive grassy area in the center with trees literally as big around as a tractor-trailer. My friend and I sat looking out over this huge lawn while everybody else walked around the circle, then we sat for a while longer while half of them went to a fashion museum and the rest of us said, "No, that's alright, I'd rather not spend my money on seeing something else I hate."

.....Maybe that was just me but I may speak for some of their thoughts.

It was going on 5pm so we decided to wish Bath farewell and head back to Cheltenham. We all survived another trip on the trains and a hike back to the dorm. I think we're all pretty much unscathed, except I'm sporting a beautiful sunburn on my chest with a white stripe where my purse strap sat all day. (Ma, it doesn't hurt, it just looks bad.)

I have an exam to take tomorrow so the rest of the day will be spent reading and writing in preparation for that. Happy Sunday to my readers, love to my family, and hopefully I'll talk to some of you soon!