it was a lovely weekend

we once again took the busses
stopped at stonehenge!
surprisingly, the road comes right up to it, it's odd
but they have plans to put the road in a tunnel underground and made a new visitor's center 3 km away and have a train take people out to it. i think that'll make it a little more magical.
nonetheless i didn't find it disappointing.
it was roped off but at the beginning you get to be pretty close to it
it was super windy and apparently it can get 80 km/hr winds!
they had little audio guides but they were pretty annoying
the whole time it was like "this is what we think happened. this is why we think they built it. but we don't really know. we don't know. we don't know..."
alrighty then!

Picture time!

next on to the city of Bath
Soooooooooooooo beautiful
my new favorite city in the world
it was so quaint and felt really quiet and relaxing
it's a "holiday town" or vacation town
the romans were the first to exploit it's hot springs
the only natural hot springs in the entire UK
after the romans died out, bath was rebuilt in the medieval times
but it was thought to have healing powers so it was all poor and diseased people
then in the georgian period (17th/18th century) it became popular among the royals
it was a luxury, social place where people went to see and be seen
Jane Austen lived there and made it famous in her novels
although she actually didn't enjoy living there

we first took a 2 hour historical walking tour with an adorable older woman
it was freezing cold and drizzly
then we took a break for dinner
found an amazing italian place (always italian! it's the safest choice)
had penne tuscane.
the sauce was made of tomato, olive oil, red wine, rosemary and tuscan sausages. yum!
then we found an amazing gelato place
got white chocolate and apricot
i'm so excited to go to italy!
then we got to visit the roman baths
soooo cool
they've only been uncovered in the past 100 years
those romans were so smart it's ridiculous
it's hard to understand how they were defeated
the water still comes up into the baths
though you are highly discouraged to even touch the water
it's pretty nasty and apparently the romans used a lead piping system
so it's kind of toxic to drink
we stayed at the local YMCA hostel, 14 beds in a room

the next day my friend Laurie and I went to the Jane Austen center
we walked through the exhibit and took a tour
then melody and jenny met up with us
We had tea in the upstairs tearoom
super cute
i had peppermint tea and crumpets with clotted cream and honey
delicious!
then we just walked around a bit
the city is so beautiful!
i definitely want to go back some day