We woke up at 8:00, as we needed to pack all our bags before
the bus left on the Stonehenge/Bath tour at 10:30. We actually got packed quicker than I
thought, although I ended up throwing a few shirts and socks away to make room
for things that we had accumulated during our vacation. We had some breakfast at the restaurant with
Melissa’s grandma and aunt Karen, went upstairs for the last time to grab our
bags, and checked out. We boarded the
coach bus after putting our bags below, and we all headed out on our farewell
tour.
When we finally got to Stonehenge, whoever had the tickets
thought they were only brochures, and either handed them to random people or
went in with multiples. Eventually we
all made it in to see the stones, but because we had pre-booked tours in the
city of Bath, we only had about 15 minutes to enjoy Stonehenge. It felt similar to Poulnabrone Dolmen, how it
was basically just rocks in a field, but the scale of it was actually bigger
than I had expected. We quickly walked
around the place, boarded the bus again, and headed to Bath.
There were two tours set up in Bath: one was a walking tour
with a guy dressed in 18th century costume, and the other was to
tour the Roman hot baths discovered in the middle of the city.
Melissa and I ended up on the walking tour first, which I
found very enjoyable. The guy had
studied history so he knew his stuff. We
wound all over the city, and the guide had arranged for us to see one of the
private gardens of one of the houses on “the circus” (Nic Cage recently sold house
no. 7 on the circus), so that was an added bonus. The Roman Baths tour was extremely
interesting. It turns out that the baths
were buried and only rediscovered in the 1700s; how something so extensive
could be covered up by the expanding town and not found for so long is beyond
me, but there you go. Again, the bus was
due to leave the city around 5:30, so we couldn’t see absolutely everything but
still saw most.
We bought our train tickets to London Paddington at the Bath
Station for 30 pounds each. TRAVELLERS
TIP: WHEN THERE IS A LARGE GROUP TRAVELLING, CHECK FOR GROUP DISCOUNTS!!! Turns out we could have joined in with
everyone else, and although the first person’s ticket would have been 30
pounds, all additional tickets sold for 15.
Oh well.
We arrived at Paddington Station around 8:00, and took the
tube to Swiss Cottage, where Adam, Devin, Alex, Alan and Madonna had a hotel
reservation. After Adam and Alex got the
keys to the room, we smuggled the other five of us in, and settled into the
room for the night. Madonna and I stayed
in the room while the rest of the gang went out for some food. We ended up having pizza, Chinese, and pasta,
along with some convenience store snacks and soda.
The highlight of the night came at bed time, as Melissa and
I needed to leave at 6:30am. With 7
guests and only 2 twin beds, we needed to be creative. Alan fell asleep on the floor, but we ended
up pushing the two beds together, and the other six of us slept on these
mattresses somehow! Yes, you can try and
picture it, but I was there and still don’t know how it worked out. Devin, Adam, Madonna, Melissa, and me
sleeping transversely (across the crack) and Alex was along the wall below
everyone else’s feet (except me who shared a pillow with him). Melissa and I only made it part of the night
until, due to uncomfortable conditions and snoring, moved to the floor. We had a horrible night’s sleep, but came
away with a very funny story.
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