I hope that you haven't abandoned me over the last week (or more?) that I haven't been able to update. Sadly, my life mostly involved doing research for papers, complaining about how many papers I had to write, attempting to write papers, doing more complaining, actually writing papers.... you get the idea. Anyway, I successfully finished all four of my epic papers in two weeks, and I am still alive to tell the tale (barely).
The greatest reward for my finishing my work was that MY MOMMY CAME TO VISIT ME!!! She arrived on Wednesday, and I introduced her to Bath by taking her to afternoon tea, giving her a brief walking tour of the city (Pultney Bridge, Milsom Street, the Circus, the Royal Crescent, my house, Nelson House, etc.), and going out to dinner (The Moon and Sixpence-- soooo good, and soooo not what I usually get to eat!). She then went to sleep off some jet lag, and I went home to work on my last paper (yes, I lied-- my work wasn't totally finished yet).
Thursday, we spent most of the day doing proper touristy things (which I never really did, seeing as I live here and all). It was terribly strange, actually being a tourist in this city that I live in, but am not really from. It also made it much more difficult to make my usual complaints about tourists, because suddenly, I was one too (oh, the horror!). But given that I finally got a chance to see these things that I should have seen a month ago, I'm glad that Mom gave me the excuse to be a tourist.
First stop: the Roman Baths. The Romans were not the first people to settle in Bath-- that would be the Celts, in 43 CE. The Romans kicked them out 20 years later, and proceeded to build some pretty epic temples and an enormous spa complex over the naturally-occurring hotsprings that are situated in the middle of Bath. The main baths are actually still in good condition, because they were opened for use again in the 18th century, when the city of Bath as we know it today was built-- what remains now is partly original (ie, Roman), but with some help from the Georgian architects, and other parts of the original complex have been excavated over the years as well.
The Baaahths of Baaahth.
There are tons of great artifacts that they dug up from the site of the Bath complex-- including a the head of a bronze statue of Sullis Minerva, the goddess to whom the temple in this city was dedicated to. The temple once stood where Bath Abbey stands now (ironic?).
Mr. Stone Roman is keeping a close eye on you, Abbots!
And after the Baths, we saw the adjoining Pump Room-- an important part of the social scene back in Georgian/ Regency times (Jane Austen's time) when Bath was the happinin' place to be. It is lavishly decorated, and contains a fountain where you can still sample the Bath waters-- originally "taken" for health reasons (it's got a boatload of minerals in it, and doctors used to recommend going to Bath and "taking the waters" as well as swimming in them to cure various ailments), and now given to tourists for the amusement of the locals, who get to watch the faces they make when they take a big swig of warm, sulfurous water. Mmmmm.
After all of this historical excitement, we went to lunch at The Circus Cafe, right off of-- you guessed it-- the Circus. It is where the rich and famous (the people who actually live in the Circus and the Royal Crescent) go to eat-- so we had a very posh lunch, and it was delicious. Then we headed to the Fashion Museum, where we saw all kinds of fascinating collections of dresses and clothing through the centuries, from the 1800s on, as well as a special exhibit on Princess Diana's dresses, which was excellent. We also saw the Assembly Rooms-- again, an important part of the Regency social scene-- this is where public balls happened every night. These rooms are incredibly gorgeous; I kind of really want to have a wedding reception there...
I had to actually go to class (I know, crazy, right?), so Mom and I split up at that point-- she walked around the city a bit, and I learned about gender theory. I think I got the short end of the stick. We met up again for dinner-- this time, at Canasis, a French restaurant. We had a looooong dinner, and it was delicious, and I was ridiculously full-- but I had to finish my paper before midnight so that I could get it to the study center before it closed. So I frantically finished it up by 11:15, and ran over to Nelson (thankfully, I was staying in Mom's hotel that night, and it was only three minutes away!), printed it out, and had to thumbtack it to the door of the office, because everything was locked up already. It was an adventure, and an incredible relief!
We woke up early on Friday morning, and had breakfast in the hotel before running to catch the train to.... Penzance!
....And now I'm going to be really mean and stop writing, because the hotel that we're in here in Penzance turns off the internet at 10 pm (who does that?!), so I'm scrambling to finish this in time to post it. But I have all kinds of exciting things to tell you about our wonderful trip to Cornwall-- so check back tomorrow!
Until then, my dear readers, adieu!
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