This weekend involved a wonderful trip with my fellow Lawrentians to Stourhead Gardens and Bath. Stourhead was a newly wealthy family's wonderful attempt at showing off to the older nobility; they spared no expense in the gardens, which tell the story of Hercules as you go along. Each view in the garden is carefully engineered to match Italian landscape paintings, and with the leaves just now starting to turn colors...it was stunning, to say the least.
Just a general idea of how RIDICULOUSLY GORGEOUS this place is.
After getting the pants wowed off me, we journeyed on to the equally gorgeous town of Bath (pronounced "Bahth" not "Baaath"). Here we explored the ancient Roman public bath house, which was beautiful, and then stopped for dinner at a delicious Thai place.
Street in Bath
The Baths
The Avon River
Many of us were staying the night so we could explore Bath more on Sunday, myself included. I had booked a double room for me and my roommate Jill at a nice lodge, and by the end of the day we were both looking forward to a nice bed and shower. We took a cab to the lodge because neither of us knew how to get there (my mistake, I didn't look up how to get there), and I walked up to the front desk and said to the lady there that I had made a reservation. Here's where shit got complicated. She looked for my name and we soon discovered that I had accidentally booked Sunday night instead of Saturday night! There was immediate panic when we realized that we now had nowhere to stay the night- it was 8:45pm and we were exhausted. The lady called all the hotels in the area and none of them had any rooms left for under 120 pounds a night (which is ridiculous, roughly $200). This is where she became the heroine of the night: she was obviously worried about us in a motherly sort of way because there was no where for us to sleep, so she offered us some floor space in a little room she had because she didn't have any rooms left either (I do NOT know what was going on in Bath that night, that every hotel within 20 km was full). This woman could have just shrugged and said sorry and kicked us out, but she took us in, found us blankets and an air mattress (she made her husband blow it up for us); in the morning, she gave us breakfast. I cannot thank this woman enough for her generosity- without her, I honestly don't know what we would have done because of my mistake. Whenever I tried to thank her, she just said, "It happens to the best of us, and I wouldn't want to see two young women on the streets!" Let this be a lesson to all of us, the lesson of the Kind Innkeeper. This sweet old woman helped me when I most needed it, when I had made a mistake that had put me and my roommate in very real trouble. It's people like her that make the world worth living in.
After that rather stressful episode and a restless night on a floor, we woke up and got ready to explore Bath. We took a tour to Stonehenge, and I was blown away (literally, it was very windy) by just how OLD these stones are. When the Romans conquered, Stonehenge was already in ruins! I'm getting used to being around old stuff, living in London, but Stonehenge was another story entirely. And we, with all of our knowledge and technology, STILL have no idea what the hell these gigantic stones are doing chilling in the middle of the English countryside. I was a bit disappointed that they don't let the tourists closer than 15 feet or so to the standing stones; I'm a very tactile person and my favorite part of being around old stuff is being able to look closely and touch things, it makes me feel closer to the ancients who built it.
Ze proof!
After the Hanging Stones (what "Stonehenge" means in old English), I had the Jane Austen tea at the Jane Austen museum. The tea was delicious, and the museum had various letters that Jane wrote when she lived in Bath. We actually don't know exactly what she looked like, which I thought was interesting; this incredibly famous woman is still a mystery to us! I also checked out the Bath Abbey, which is in the centre of town, and saw various architectural masterpieces (The Circus and The Royal Crescent). To my UU readers, I found a Quaker Meeting House! I had to do a double take- what's an American religion doing in the middle of a fancy little English town? Mind. Blown.
Quaker Meeting House?! What?!
Mr. Darcy watching over me and my tea :)
Now I'm broke and starting orchestra rehearsals as a new member of Orchestra Vitae, an orchestra with a close relationship with FIE, the program that Lawrence is teamed up with in London. We'll see how this goes! I've definitely missed playing with an orchestra- we're performing in a week, Gershwin's An American in Paris, Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, and McNuff's Secret Destinations. I have no idea what I'm doing this weekend, but I'm definitely excited for Halloween in London and for Mom to come in 2 weeks! I hope you are all doing well and that the world is treating you as kindly as it did me this past weekend.
Yours Truly,
The Management
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