The bus ride took roughly 4 hours which I was a little surprised at. I guess I hadn't realized how tiny England truly is. Lancaster is fairly north and Bath is in the south of England, so we basically traversed from one end of the country to the other in the span of a morning. Our bus driver was really friendly and hilarious and it was really great driving through a lot of countryside. As per usual, it felt very Pride and Prejudice-y.
Speaking of which, when we arrived in Bath, not only did Michelle and I get to see the house Jane Austen lived in (it's a dental surgeon's office now so we didn't go inside - though I was tempted!), but we stopped at the Jane Austen Centre down the street and had a proper English tea. I've never been much of a tea drinker, but I keep trying it in the hopes that I'll like it one day and I guess Saturday was the day because the peppermint tea I had was fabulous! It was the first time I'd try tea leaves rather than a tea bag, so maybe that had something to do with it? All I know is that I had two cups of tea which is a record for me because I don't think I've ever gotten through one before. Michelle and I also had a nice spread of scones, finger sandwiches, and cakes with our tea.
There were also portraits of Mr. Darcy all over the place. Even the bathroom.
I'll confess, I bought an 'I (Heart) Mr Darcy' canvas bag. I thought it would be the perfect bag to take book shopping! And it was, because I ended up buying two Harry Potter books. I keep seeing the paperbacks for incredibly cheap here and not having paperbook Harry Potters or the British versions, I thought I'd leave England with the entire set. I feel a little silly buying books I already own, but I really have no shame. (Yep. Further evidence of my literature nerd status.)
Michelle and I left the Jane Austen Centre with our wallets a little lighter, but our bellies content. We wanted to see the Roman baths in Bath (naturally), but when we got there they'd already closed. We arrived at the baths at 4:33 and they closed their doors at 4:30. I'll never get over how early things close here. That was a little disappointing, but one of the other Lancaster international students who had come on the trip and who we bumped into later said it wasn't that great. Still, maybe if we're ever in Bath again we'll make a better attempt to see their namesake (and have tea with Mr. Darcy again!).
Later that night we wandered around Bath and got lost (as is our habit), but stopped in a nice pub and I finally had fish and chips. Whoever organized the trip had us stay at the YMCA, which was nice because they gave us free breakfast in the morning, but not so nice because their mattresses sucked. Suffice it to say, I didn't spend much time sleeping.
Sunday morning we left Bath and stopped at Stonehenge on our way back to Lancaster. It was rainy and windy, but that didn't take away from how very cool it was to see Stonehenge. I'd been warned that Stonehenge wasn't that great, but we got surprisingly close to the stones and even though I've seen tons of photos of Stonehenge, it was still something else to actually be standing there looking at it.
We arrived back in Lancaster later that night and it was back to normal life.
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