Bath = Absolutely Brilliant

Hi all!

Terribly sorry to not have updated earlier-- the internet in my house is a bit dodgy, and when I had planned to update yesterday, my internet was out.  But anyway, here I am, safe and sound in the absolutely gorgeous city of Bath! 

  

B

Bath, behind a bridge across the River Avon.

For a bit of background-- Bath is an 18th century Georgian city (one of the first and only examples of city planning in England!), but its history goes back much further.  The Celts discovered the mineral hot springs here somewhere around the year 40, and the Romans took it over in 63, as the world's first resort town.  People have been coming to Bath for thousands of years to bathe in the hot springs or "take the waters" (ie, drink the horribly smelly warm water that contains 43 gross-tasting minerals) for their health.  In the 18th century, Bath became the top destination for English tourists, and the center of social life outside of London (you make recognize it from Jane Austen's Persuasion and Sense and Sensibility).  Nowadays, it is still largely a tourist city, and home to lots of wealthy residents and a large student population, with a total of 100,000 residents. 

My arrival in England was actually quite smooth.  I got an empty seat next to me on the plane, so I got to spread out (thank goodness!).  Once we landed, I managed to actually handle all of my baggage at once, which was quite a feat.  I got through customs, even though the officer was teasing me (in a very strong accent) about the fact that I was studying English here, since it appears that I already speak the language (then he accused me of having no mates at home).  I found some other people from my program in the bus station, and we all took the coach to Bath-- about 2.5 hrs.  Once we arrived, we had to drag all of our luggage down the flagstone streets (with the CRAZY British drivers!) to the train station, to be picked up by the program.  They drove us to our houses, and we drove up an enormous hill to our house.

 Looking down the hill from our house-- you have no idea how steep this is.

I'm living in a "posh part of town," I'm told, in a cute Georgian townhouse.  Such houses are very tall, and very narrow, have small kitchens, quirky plumbing, and tiny beds (and ours has old carpet and lots of old mismatched furniture, plus bubblegum-pink comforters).  Despite the fact that we are on top of a ridiculous slope, and are a good twenty minute walk from our programme's building, and that the house is a bit odd, there is something very charming about it (plus, I'll be getting lots of excercise).  There are seven of us in our house, and there is an identical house across the street with another eight people in it.  There are also two other houses of people in the programme (living right next to the study center), for a total of thirty-seven people in the programme.

 Bath takes a lot of pride in its status as a World Heritage City, and our programme takes a great deal of pride in the fact that our study center (Nelson House) was a former residence of 

Admiral Lord Nelson.

Thus far, we've mostly been doing a lot of orientation stuff-- meeting the staff (the director reminds me of Hugh Grant....lovely), writing diagnostic papers (eww), wandering around town (much more fun), attempting to go food shopping and winding up just buying sandwiches at a shop (very tasty), and generally getting to know each other.  Everyone here is very nice, with lots of similar interests. 
Some highlights so far: eating fish and chips with beer at a pub, eating a Cornish Pasty (that's PAH-stee-- if you say pay-stee, people will laugh in your face), already acquiring a British-accent narrated interior monologue, having people say "cheers!" to me all the time, and finding out that my tutorial (which is NOT meeting in Oxford, by the way, which makes me very upset) has a 32-page paper required.  Woohoo!

 Eating fish and chips at a pub!

Also, I'm so sorry, but I've been really bad about taking pictures-- there's been a lot of running to and fro from our house to the study center, so even though I pass through the center of town every day, I haven't taken many pictures yet.  I promise to remedy this situation as promptly as possible.  Meanwhile, I can offer you this:

C

Cat that tried to steal my fish and chips.

Cheers!