Day 8 - 5/25

Stonehenge & Bath

I felt better this morning so I went on the day trip to Stonehenge and Bath. Stonehenge was impressive although you are not allowed to walk up to it and touch the stones. I didn't realize that the stones are actually fitted together not just piled on top of each other. It makes sense because they have been standing for thousands of years.

I also learned that it was built in three stages. The first and oldest stage was a ditch. For the second stage, they brought blue stones from 150 miles away. For the third stage they erected the larger stones from 25 miles, which still stand today.

No one knows exactly why Stonehenge was built. It was most likely used as a calendar. One the Summer Solstice, the sun rises directly over the hedge stone(?). Each month after that, it rises between the gaps in the stones and then goes back.

Next we went to Bath. I had no idea what bath was before today. Bath is a city built around the ancient Roman baths. The baths are and were actually natural hot springs. The Romans had no natural explanation for the springs so they perceived it as a gift from the god Minerva. The baths were a place to bathe, socialize and worship Minerva. We walked through a museum that was build around the ancient baths and contains a lot of the artifacts that were discovered with them.

After the museum, we walked around the city of Bath. There was a lot of beautiful Georgian architecture. One building of townhouses was round with columns. It was inspired by the Colosseum in Rome. All of the doors were painted white to make it look uniform, except for one that was painted pale yellow. Apparently, the lady who owned that house caused quite a fuss by painting her door a different color.

It took us FOREVER to get back to the hotel. It was supposed to take about 2 hours but our bus driver had to stop a half hour into the trip to use the restroom, smoke, get coffee and put gas in the bus. It took about 45 minutes. Not one person on the bus other than the driver got out of the bus. Everyone, including our tour guide was irritated. The driver had plenty of time for all those things while we were in Bath. Our guide even told the driver, “In all fairness we'd all like to get back to London at some point tonight.” While we were waiting in the parking lot, we were joking about the trucks in the parking lot. Everything in Europe is the “est” or the “most” of its kind. So we said, “This is the oldest semi. This is the largest semi. This is the most expensive semi.” It was all very funny in the moment.

When we got back to the hotel, we got ready to go out to a club called Zoo bar. The bar was a lot of fun once we got there. It took us about 45 minutes to get there on the tube. I feel like most of my time in London has been spent on the tube. At the bar we got a free shot and half off drinks. It was fun dancing for about an hour and a half before we had to leave to catch the tube back. A really creepy guy tried to dance with me, but my friends saved me by pulling me away. We had to do the same thing for several other girls. A really short guy who looked like he was about 12, also asked to dance with me. I just held up my left hand and showed him the ring Kevin gave me. It was such a useful deterrent, that several other girls are considering getting fake ones for the next club. :-)