One last Log entry...
This will be the last full log entry until I arrive home--and likely until Friday afternoon, as I'm sure I'll be tired from the trip. There may be one picture entry, thought that remains to be seen.
I finished all of my coursework last night, and have recieved an A for the BIC Capstone. Haven't gotten the other grades back yet, but I'm not really worried about it.
In sum, I've had a great time, and I really don't want to go home tomorrow and (literally, in my case) have to face the music. But as the cliche says, all good things must come to an end.
When I get back, there will be some final updates. I'll probably do a "best of" picture page, and I'll have some reflections, summations, statistics, and conclusions--as well as a conclusion about this blog, which (as you no doubt recall) was an experiment from day one.
Anyway, here's the last log entry written in England:
Log Entry 47: Bath Spa 08/08/2005
Over the Weekend, we had planned to go into London on Sunday, but when it got around to it, neither of us really wanted to go. So we ended up having a nice, relaxing weekend at home. Both Cozad and I had a ton of papers to write, so it was some much needed time—even if all I did was put the papers off as long as possible.
On Monday, we decided to make the trip to see the Roman Baths at Bath. This was really the only thing left on our list of things to do that we had not accomplished. We had class at 4p.m. that day, so we had to make it a quick trip.
Our train left the station at 8:33 a.m., probably the earliest we have had to set out on the trip so far—even earlier than going up to the Open. We had to leave Tom Gate about 8 a.m. It was certainly difficult to do, but I think it was well worth the effort. The train went first to Didcot Parkway (about 10 minutes from Oxford), where we were going to have a layover of about 12 minutes. Unfortunately, the other train was late, so we basically had to sit and do nothing for about 30 minutes. I actually used this time to type out some of my BIC paper on my phone. Gotta love technology.
Anyway, we were soon on the train to Bath, which was really not all that far from Oxford—only an hour of actual rail travel. However, the country-side changed rather dramatically. Oxford is relatively flat, but Bath was hilly. It reminded me a bit of some places in Scotland. Later, upon looking at a map, I found that Bath was probably the farthest point west of London that I have been in England (not counting Wales, of course). So it was definitely interesting to see this different type of terrain.
The walk to the Roman Baths from the Train Station was pretty short—no further than it is from Ch Ch to the train station. Upon reaching the site, you are first presented with a huge church, which is Bath Abbey. The Baths themselves were nowhere to be seen. Come to find out, they were underground, or rather, under the street level. The entire Roman city is underneath the current one.
The Baths were not discovered until early in the 19th century, and the Victorians that had discovered it build a terrace around the great bath—the largest of several. This is what you see from the street.
We entered the Bath complex and whipped out our Heritage Passes, which saved us the extraordinary fee of £9.50, which I thought was rather absurd. Anyway, we were soon walking around the terrace, looking down into the great bath, which was a large rectangular pool of green water. In Roman times, the bath was covered with a roof, so the water would have been clear. Today, however, algae grow freely, and the water takes on a pleasant green shade.
The baths are organized in a sort of sprawling museum, which lets you see the ruinous complex in full. One of the most interesting aspects of this bath—there are several in England—is that it is also houses a sacred temple to Minerva. The remains of this temple are visible in part, but a large majority of it was demolished to use in construction of the first Christian abbey on the site. They have found examples of stones carved with decorations lying face down, forming the pavement, which indicates that the early Christians re-used the stone in their constructions. In fact, some feel that there might be another huge temple site buried underneath the current Abbey, but of course it would be very difficult to excavate such a site.
Perhaps the most interesting thing to me was the Roman engineering. They had some pretty advanced stuff. The remains of several heated floors are viewable. The flooring itself is long gone, but the ducts through which they pumped hot air are still visible to all. The Romans also had an ingenious piping system, which kept all the baths filled with water and cycled the water so that it would be at least somewhat clean.
One particular bath was a “cold plunge” pool, which the intrepid Romans would jump into after going through the hot rooms and the hot bath, and then the warm bath. In this pool, the current curators of the Bath site had asked people to throw money into the water for the future conservation of the site. The water was filled with coins and even paper currency—at one point, we saw an American $20 bill; had it been any closer, I daresay we would have made a grab for it.
Our last stop in the bath complex was the pump room, which is a beautiful Victorian dining room, which contains a fountain of spa water. As part of our ticket, we were entitled to take a drink of this water. We asked the smartly dressed man for two glasses, and he replied, “you haven’t tried this yet, have you? One will be enough.” One was certainly enough. The water didn’t taste bad—I think it still tastes better than Waco water—but it wasn’t all that good, either. There was a lot of iron in it. I can’t imagine anyone drinking it because of the taste.
And that was pretty much it for our trip to Bath Spa. We walked around town a bit, which was very nice, but pretty much like every other good-sized English town. Same shops, etc. We had lunch at a place called “California Kitchen,” which served only American food. Still didn’t know what real bacon is, though—that’s the thing I have missed the most. I don’t want ham on my cheeseburger; I want bacon. On the way out, we looked briefly at the park/gardens, which were very nice.
Anyway, after this short excursion, we caught the train to Didcot parkway. Luckily, our train was early, and the other train going to Oxford was about 3 minutes late, so we just made the earlier train, which gave us about 30 extra minutes. We were back by 3pm; a good ending to our adventures abroad in England and Scotland.
I finished all of my coursework last night, and have recieved an A for the BIC Capstone. Haven't gotten the other grades back yet, but I'm not really worried about it.
In sum, I've had a great time, and I really don't want to go home tomorrow and (literally, in my case) have to face the music. But as the cliche says, all good things must come to an end.
When I get back, there will be some final updates. I'll probably do a "best of" picture page, and I'll have some reflections, summations, statistics, and conclusions--as well as a conclusion about this blog, which (as you no doubt recall) was an experiment from day one.
Anyway, here's the last log entry written in England:
Log Entry 47: Bath Spa 08/08/2005
Over the Weekend, we had planned to go into London on Sunday, but when it got around to it, neither of us really wanted to go. So we ended up having a nice, relaxing weekend at home. Both Cozad and I had a ton of papers to write, so it was some much needed time—even if all I did was put the papers off as long as possible.
On Monday, we decided to make the trip to see the Roman Baths at Bath. This was really the only thing left on our list of things to do that we had not accomplished. We had class at 4p.m. that day, so we had to make it a quick trip.
Our train left the station at 8:33 a.m., probably the earliest we have had to set out on the trip so far—even earlier than going up to the Open. We had to leave Tom Gate about 8 a.m. It was certainly difficult to do, but I think it was well worth the effort. The train went first to Didcot Parkway (about 10 minutes from Oxford), where we were going to have a layover of about 12 minutes. Unfortunately, the other train was late, so we basically had to sit and do nothing for about 30 minutes. I actually used this time to type out some of my BIC paper on my phone. Gotta love technology.
Anyway, we were soon on the train to Bath, which was really not all that far from Oxford—only an hour of actual rail travel. However, the country-side changed rather dramatically. Oxford is relatively flat, but Bath was hilly. It reminded me a bit of some places in Scotland. Later, upon looking at a map, I found that Bath was probably the farthest point west of London that I have been in England (not counting Wales, of course). So it was definitely interesting to see this different type of terrain.
The walk to the Roman Baths from the Train Station was pretty short—no further than it is from Ch Ch to the train station. Upon reaching the site, you are first presented with a huge church, which is Bath Abbey. The Baths themselves were nowhere to be seen. Come to find out, they were underground, or rather, under the street level. The entire Roman city is underneath the current one.
The Baths were not discovered until early in the 19th century, and the Victorians that had discovered it build a terrace around the great bath—the largest of several. This is what you see from the street.
We entered the Bath complex and whipped out our Heritage Passes, which saved us the extraordinary fee of £9.50, which I thought was rather absurd. Anyway, we were soon walking around the terrace, looking down into the great bath, which was a large rectangular pool of green water. In Roman times, the bath was covered with a roof, so the water would have been clear. Today, however, algae grow freely, and the water takes on a pleasant green shade.
The baths are organized in a sort of sprawling museum, which lets you see the ruinous complex in full. One of the most interesting aspects of this bath—there are several in England—is that it is also houses a sacred temple to Minerva. The remains of this temple are visible in part, but a large majority of it was demolished to use in construction of the first Christian abbey on the site. They have found examples of stones carved with decorations lying face down, forming the pavement, which indicates that the early Christians re-used the stone in their constructions. In fact, some feel that there might be another huge temple site buried underneath the current Abbey, but of course it would be very difficult to excavate such a site.
Perhaps the most interesting thing to me was the Roman engineering. They had some pretty advanced stuff. The remains of several heated floors are viewable. The flooring itself is long gone, but the ducts through which they pumped hot air are still visible to all. The Romans also had an ingenious piping system, which kept all the baths filled with water and cycled the water so that it would be at least somewhat clean.
One particular bath was a “cold plunge” pool, which the intrepid Romans would jump into after going through the hot rooms and the hot bath, and then the warm bath. In this pool, the current curators of the Bath site had asked people to throw money into the water for the future conservation of the site. The water was filled with coins and even paper currency—at one point, we saw an American $20 bill; had it been any closer, I daresay we would have made a grab for it.
Our last stop in the bath complex was the pump room, which is a beautiful Victorian dining room, which contains a fountain of spa water. As part of our ticket, we were entitled to take a drink of this water. We asked the smartly dressed man for two glasses, and he replied, “you haven’t tried this yet, have you? One will be enough.” One was certainly enough. The water didn’t taste bad—I think it still tastes better than Waco water—but it wasn’t all that good, either. There was a lot of iron in it. I can’t imagine anyone drinking it because of the taste.
And that was pretty much it for our trip to Bath Spa. We walked around town a bit, which was very nice, but pretty much like every other good-sized English town. Same shops, etc. We had lunch at a place called “California Kitchen,” which served only American food. Still didn’t know what real bacon is, though—that’s the thing I have missed the most. I don’t want ham on my cheeseburger; I want bacon. On the way out, we looked briefly at the park/gardens, which were very nice.
Anyway, after this short excursion, we caught the train to Didcot parkway. Luckily, our train was early, and the other train going to Oxford was about 3 minutes late, so we just made the earlier train, which gave us about 30 extra minutes. We were back by 3pm; a good ending to our adventures abroad in England and Scotland.
posted by Cameron Talley at 11:27 AM
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