Le mie benedizioni: An Update and Bath

So obviously quite a bit has happened since I last blogged, and I'm not going to catch up on most of it. At some point in the future, my brother is going to create a blog in honor of my dad, so I'll write about dad things once that is up and running, but I won't really write very much here. I will give a brief update on how I'm doing though. The hardest thing that I'm dealing with right now is a seeming double-edged sword of mostly being uber annoyed at all people, all of the time, and also having huge bouts of loneliness. I am an introvert even at the best of times, so when I am here in the midst of the worst of times my tolerance level of human interaction is at an all time low. This Sunday after church my ward was having a munch and mingle, full of delicious looking treats. However, I had just spent 3 hours with a large number of people, and as the munch and mingle was getting set up and many people came up to me expressing a hope that I would stay and chat, I gave a big smile, a nod of the head, and ran away as soon as everyone's backs were turned. Normally I love my ward. And I love food. So normally this would be totally fun for me. But I could not deal on Sunday. This week with my classmates at school has been the same. They're planning a big dinner for a birthday celebration, which is normally something I would love attending. But I am so at my edge of dealing with human interaction at this point that I armed myself with every excuse in the book. It didn't work, unfortunately, and I was still bullied into attending the dinner, though I found out later some other kid got out of it because of football practice. Since when is football a reasonable excuse, and mental/emotional instability not? People drive me crazy. Literally. I honestly haven't had any real good time to myself since I went to Bath, 3 weeks ago. But then we have the other end of this proverbial sword. I also feel so incredibly lonely all of the time. It's the age old emo mantra of "nobody understands me". Even though I'm surround by people all of the time (much to my annoyance), I still feel all alone. I miss the close and deep relationships that I had before, the personal interactions of a friend that really knows what I'm going through. But, enough emo for one blog post. This post is really supposed to be about Bath, which was super delightful and uber relaxing!

Again, like any other city I've visited so far, I took a million pictures of architecture which is boring to most people, so I'll try to stick to what people like to see. I do have to post some pictures of the Abbey though, because it was gorgeous! First a view of the English countryside from the train I was taking to Bath:

The gorgeous Bath Abbey

My first stop in Bath was a tour of the Roman Bath House. So when the Romans were taking over the place in 43AD, the realized that there was a natural warm spring in the area and decided to take advantage. They started building a huge complex that involved both a public bath house (with many pools) and a temple. This is a model of what it would have looked like in the hey day of Roman times:

There is still quite a bit visible from the ruins today!

(note the steam from the naturally warm water!!)

(These stacks of tile somehow kept the water warm or did some sort of heating thing...)

At the end of the tour they had some of the natural spring water running for us to take a drink. It was indeed warm, but when in Bath...do as the Romans do?

Well, I had the first part of the above quote down, so it was off to complete the second part! Off to the Spa!!!

The spa was the most lovely thing ever. I would go over and over and over and over again. Seriously! I had never felt so relaxed in my life! Next time I go I want a massage as well, but those you have to really plan ahead and book a month in advance!
After the spa I ran into Rachel and went out for Japanese food! YUM!

We also stopped at a place that was showing the Red Sox play off game, so that was glorious!!! :)

And apparently Bath has policemen on horses.

The next morning started a long day of sightseeing. I started by passing by the famous architectural feats of the Crescent and the Circus. I don't have any good pictures of the Crescent, because they were doing some construction, but I liked the Circus better anyways so I don't mind. The Circus is a row of buildings in a perfect circle, minus 3 little openings for cars to get in and out.

I then went to a couple museums, the Holburne and the Victoria. I preferred the Victoria much more over the Holburne. Both museums were very small, just a couple of rooms each, but had very different displays. I couldn't take any pictures in the Victoria, but trust me, the art was absolutely lovely.

The one interesting thing I saw at the Holburne though was the official portrait of the Duchess of Cambridge, which is not quite as lovely as the real person, I don't think:

After the galleries, it was off to the Jane Austen Centre! This was a fun little place. They give a little presentation on what it was like to live in the Regency period, then let you walk through their exhibition. I thought it was fun, and I especially loved getting afternoon tea at the end! This was the most perfect thing I could have done that day! Nothing like tea and scones to sooth a soul!

Then I walked up to Prior Park, which was a long and arduous walk which I would never do again. But the park was gorgeous and I am glad I went. These first few pictures are from the walk up to the park:

And these fantastic shots are in the park itself!

After that I took a train to Chippenham, where Rachel lives. We watched General Conference that evening and she made me delicious food for dinner! On Sunday morning we went on a walk around the Chippenham countryside, which was spectacular!