Integral Week Two: Bath

This week has been interesting, and non-homework wise the most stressful since I arrived in England. Honestly I don't know why I'm surprised though. Anyway, Mom and Linda came to Oxford after lectures by train, and I went to the station to get them. I was there when they arrived, but somehow in the crowd of people we missed each other and spent a good 20 minutes trying to find one another. Eventually we did, and headed out. We stopped at Jessops for a while so Linda could look into getting her camera batter replaced, and then came back to my room. After dropping out stuff off we went to the Eagle & Child for lunch, which I was very happy about. From there we went to the Bodleian, but the earliest full tour was already full, so we signed up for the later shorter tour. While we waited we did some souvenir shopping at a few university shops, took a little longer than I would have liked, but oh well. The Bod tour was fun, and I even learned a few things about it that I didn't know, and also learned how to get into the Exeter College gardens, which I will do sometime before I leave. After the tour we were pretty tired and came back here to plan out ticket stuff for the rest of the week. Sadly, that did not go as planned, and after a little while I just gave up and let Mom and Linda deal with it. When settled, we still didn't have play tickets, nor did they know how or when they were getting to Bath on Wednesday. And the plan was not to see each other on Tuesday, such a great idea. Anyway, after that fiasco we picked up all their bags and headed out to dinner. We went to Pizza Hut to prove that I'm not insane and it really is quite different. They agreed with me, and in the end I got leftover pizza for later. I walked with them to the train station and said goodbye, hoping for the best come Wednesday. I came back to the JCR to watch the first Lord of the Rings with people. I really like my group here. We're all so like minded and into the same things that it really is a good fit that I don't want to end-

Tuesday was a much needed day of relaxation for me. After breakfast and lecture, I looked up books I wanted to get for research, and found out what was available from St. Peter's library. At 2 there was my local field trip around Oxford with Dr. Philpott, which I really enjoyed. I like Dr. Philpott, despite some people's opinions of him; he makes little comments that if you are able to catch them are rather quite funny. We got to see Worcester (Wooster) College, which is a sort of mishmash of buildings from different medieval buildings and then some newer ones around them. The trip did run a little longer than it was supposed to though, and by the end I was starting to get ancy to be done. I think there was something I wanted to do, but now I can't remember what it was. Oh well. I relaxed until dinner, and afterwards did a little homework reading. Got an e-mail from Dad telling me what time I was supposed to meet Mom and Linda. It said a different location, but I decided to just go with the one we had picked on Monday.

On Wednesday we had our third field trip, this time to Bath, and honestly it was not my favorite. The countryside we passed on the way there was gorgeous, and I really enjoyed riding the bus around town. There were some nice buildings and neat sites, while thinking about all the famous people who have come here over the centuries and had an influence there, like Jane Austen. Still, it was too much of a tourist town for my tastes, they even had a Disney store! You got nickled and dimed for everything you wanted to do, and we weren't able to get into the Roman Baths until later in the day, so we had to spend the morning finding our own things to do. You even had to pay to get into the parks, which were closed anyway though. And to top it off, we had some true English weather of clouds and rain. While I like the rain, most the girls were anxious to be indoors. We tried the Fashion Museum first, which charged more than most of us were willing to pay. Then we walked over to the Jane Austen house, during the hardest part of the rain, and it still charged an exorbitant amount, at least more than I and a few others were willing to pay. Finally, sopping wet, we went to Bath Abbey, right by the Roman baths. The place was big, and apparently only have the size of the one that stood there previously. It was a cool church, though again if you wanted to see the whole thing you had to pay. We left there and found somewhere to eat, a cool pub with a sort of modern Roman theme. I got a Chicken club sandwich, which was good but definitely tasted different/interesting. I've taken on a policy in England where as long as it doesn't taste bad I'll eat it and don't even bother asking what some of the English names or mixtures are anymore. I ate fast since I had to meet up with Mom, meaning I inhaled my food, and then said goodbye to be at the designated meeting place by 2:05.

There were a lot of school and tour groups around the entrance to the Bath, most non-English speaking, which made looking around a little difficult. I stood around till 2:15, and then decided that maybe they were waiting somewhere else and started looking around for them. After 2 laps around the building I expanded my search area and walked farther away. With still no luck I went back to the front of the baths, and of course there they were, talking with Laura and Craig. Go figure. But we finally met up, except they had to go into the Baths right away, while my group had to wait a little bit to go in. The Bath was amazing, and full of history. It was also an interesting mix of ancient and modern to make it more tourist friendly and preserve it. The audio guide was a nice touch as well, and very informative. While I was walking around and taking pictures of the entrance, Mom came and found me, saying she only had an hour before she had to be back on the bus, so we had to rush through a lot of the baths. The water in the main bath was an interesting shade of green, with signs warning you not to touch it. Mom had to leave after that, and I joined up with people from CMRS. We sat around the main pool for a while, and then did the rest of the rooms pretty quickly. After we reached the Pump Room (a misleading name, BTW, since it isn't actually a pump room. Just a fancy restaurant that they pump the water into), we stayed there killing time till we had to be back on the bus. We stopped in the Abbey for a few minutes, since it was closing. We also stopped in a chocolate shop, where the smell of sweets was extremely overpowering. Later after getting back we watched the Two Towers. A very good movie, but we were all so burned out from the field trip that it was a little too long. It was also a surprise when we got back, because the scaffolding that's been on St. Peter's since last term was gone. It was weird to see the actual building.

Thursday after lecture I grabbed a bus to London. Mom wanted me to take the train, but I waited to long to get a ticket and it was really expensive. I prefer the bus anyway though, so it really didn't bother me. It was also nice knowing I would get dropped off right by the hotel and not have to walk far like I would from the train station. I got there around 3:30, which was when I thought I was supposed to be there. I checked with the concierge first to see if they were there, and then went up. Apparently Mom thought I was supposed to be there earlier, and so had been waiting for me. Oh well. Linda was out shopping when I got there, and the cleaning lady was making the beds, so we discussed what was supposed to happen that night. Surprise surprise, they didn't get tickets to the Children's Hour, or Wicked, but to a musical called Million Dollar Quartet. It had Elvis music and some other big hits, and I enjoyed it, though parts of it were a little too old for me. Getting ahead of myself though. We took the tube to the theatre district, which was slightly problematic and illegal due to some problems with the Oyster Cards they had gotten earlier in the day, but we got there. For dinner we went to a pub next to the theatre our play was in. I got a meat pie, and for the first time since I've been here, mashed potatoes. Considering I'm sick of potatoes at this point and don't want to see one for the rest of the year, it was surprising to see mashed on the menu; it's very unusual here. I did enjoy the play and a good deal of the music, Elvis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis (still not a fan of Cash). The end concert was really cool, though the older crowd dancing in the aisles during this freaked me out a little. Glancing around the audience during this, I saw similar expressions on most the younger people's faces, so good to know I wasn't alone. Went back to the hotel after the play, and went to bed pretty soon after. Mom was interested in watching a movie, but Linda and I vetoed that. We were exhausted.

Friday was a bittersweet day, knowing that mom would be leaving soon. We grabbed breakfast and then grabbed a train to Oxford. I got a 3-month return ticket as an attempt not to get ripped off too much, the train is so expensive here. Upon arriving in Oxford, we avoided St. Michael's since class was going on and I didn't want to flaunt that I was skipping.  We went to a varsity shop so Mom could deal with some issues about a sweater she bought, but unfortunately the boss was out and the workerbees couldn't solve the problem, so I was nominated to comeback the next day and finish it. Great. We stopped at a few other shops to get some last minute souvenirs as well, and then came back to my room to drop it off. From there we headed out to Blenhiem palace, stopping at Morton's for lunch to eat on the way. On the way we saw Dr. Philpott, and Mom insisted on saying hello. A rather awkward meeting, with me holding my lunch while Mom brought up why I had ditched (I got an e-mail about that later, BTW), but overall it went as well as could be expected. From there we took the bus to Blenheim, which is amazing. A super long driveway with beautiful grounds, though not the most pedestrian friendly entrance; more designed for cars. Sadly the inside was a little disappointing as well, rather gaudy and overdone, and not a whole lot of info available since it is a private residence. Still, it was rather nice, though it would be nice if you could explore the sections marked 'private,' but something says that would be a bad idea. Also got my ticket turned into an annual pass, which is itself a cool card souvenir and a guarantee that I'm going back. After one of the tours we walked around the nearest garden a little, and then decided to come back to Oxford. It was rather cloudy and windy, and Mom's ankle hurt, so neither of us felt like really exploring the grounds, and since the place was pretty empty, I'd say most people felt the same. After walking all the way back down the driveway though, we were informed that it was a closed and that we had to go back and around to get out. (The gate closed at 4:30, and it was like 4:31 when we got there, so that was extremely irritating, it's not like they couldn't see us coming.) We basically had to do a giant circle through the village of Woodstock to get back to the bus stop. Mom was pretty upset, her ankle was really hurting.
After getting back to Oxford I let Mom talk to Dad on my computer for a little bit while I organized some things for her to take home. When she finished we set out for the train station, stopping in some random Italian restaurant for dinner along the way. We both got the same pasta dish, which was pretty good, especially considering it didn't have any meat. When we reached the train station we had a rushed goodbye so she could catch an earlier train. Rushed goodbyes again, not something I wanted. On the way back I was not in the best of moods. Pain and stressful as Mom is, I'm going to miss having her around. Spent the rest of the evening doing nothing. Watched the 2nd half of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King with everyone in the JCR, they had watched the first part the night before. Too bad I still haven't seen it, but at least now I've seen the ending. A relaxing way to end a busy week, and hopefully the upcoming week won't be too bad. I have a lot of work to finish.