Bathing in Bath

Arriving safely and happily in Bath has reminded me of a very important thing: I FREAKING LOVE TRAVELLING!!! I love wandering the streets of new and interesting places... I love falling asleep tothe sound of snoring on a saggy mattress in a roomful of nine of hte most awesome strangers you will ever meet. I love that I am sitting in a cozy room with them right now watching The Transformers. Basically, I love the backpacker's lifestyle because you can wake up with the certainty that that anything can happen that day. In Norwich, I had settled into a comfortable routine of school, friends, the basic necessities of life... this turns that on its head. But one is no better than the other. We need a sense of home, and the excitement of adventure. Both are necessary to fully appreciate either. So basically, I am ecstatic to be on the road again, and I hope I never forget how much I love it.

It is funny the people you run into. As a twenty-something American female, I find that I am an unlikely demographic to be travelling, especially in the BITTER COLD of the English winter. This seems to make me very approachable to the friendly stranger, easing my loneliness and in some instances heightening my caution. For instance, I was downing a much-needed sandwich/killing time in a Subway yesterday when a man sat down accross from me and inquired into what I was doing in England, etc, etc. It was all good and well until he began asking, quite insistently, that I give him my name so he could add me on facebook. Since I was in Bath, I decided to follow in the example of my heroine Jane Austen and give a pseudonym. However, the minute he asked my name I blurted out "Amber" without even thinking about it. I did have the sense, when writing it down, to change my surname. So Amber Baker, if you're out there, m apologies if a random man friends you on fbook.

Not to give the impression that you don't also run into a fair amount of awesome, amazing people. I find that I am a likely target for older couples to "take under their wing." They always start with "Are you alone?" and then a "Oh my goodness!" usually follows shortly thereafter. I don't mind. In fact, I rather like it. Last night, I bought a £3 "standing ticket" to the show Cabaret at the Theatre Royal. Literally, this means that I am standing behind the seated patrons, but standing next to me happened to be an older couple from Seattle of all places! I did not think I would be able to say, here nearly 5,000 miles from my home, that I was from SE Portland and hear "Oh, I love the Hawthorne area!" Like me, they are here for three months, but are working in London doing architecture or accounting or something random like that. And yes, Cabaret had full frontal male nudity, but no, it was not tasteful to the show.

Today, I had several self-realizing moments when I caught myself thinking "Omg, Jane Austen ambled down this very promenade" or "Jane Austen took tea in this very assembly room" or "Jane Austen may have very well relieved herself in this water closet" and then immediately follow with an "Omg, I am such a literature nerd!" Many of these moments were realized on my 2.5 Jane Austen walking tour of the city. What can I say? I'm a nerd. I also toured the Fashoine Museum and the Roman Baths, whose steaming waters are over 10,000 years old! I was very overcome with the glory of it all and how genius the Romans were in their architecture and heating methods when a tour guide enlightened us to how the Romans scraped dead skin off their bodies with olive oil and knives, burned their leg hair with hot chestnuts, or plucked their arm pit hair... *shudder* I guess when you consider all the painful things people do for beauty today, it puts it in perspective. But STILL...

A few different things than when travelling in the summer: 1) It is freezing! Easily combatible with my down coat, but the CONSTANT rain of the first day was harder to deal with. I hope it holds off... 2) It gets dark about five hours earlier, severely limiting sightseeing/walking time. However, this hostelis very warm and cozy, so I will just have to sightsee earlier and chill later. 3) No Mikey :( But I am loving travelling alone.

Tomorrow, I am seeing the Jane Austen Centre in the a.m. and Stonehenge/village of Lacock in the p.m. Hope all the election excitement is going well! Someone had better let me know the minute anything happens!