Hi. I intended to write a quick note, as I'd purchased some perishable foods, but it's been maybe 3 hours. Man, and I must finish packing for Rome. Yes...Roma. I came to check the weather and It’s supposed to friggin’ THUNDERSTORM! Tomorrow and Friday, it will be clear, cloudy on Saturday and then THUNDERSTORMS on Sunday and Monday, the day I leave. Perfect. Ah well. I wanted to write about Bath so I can tell you about Scotland and of course, Rome and the THUNDERSTORMS!
I’ve been to Scotland and Bristol since Bath and I've been in Oxford and London before it. Bath, so far, takes the cake as the most fun I've had. Scotland may be my favorite place though...for many reasons, but I didn't have as much fun as in Bath.
Bath is this tiny historic town, one stop away from Bristol and sort of close to Oxford. It’s famous for the ruins of a Roman bath house. Well, the building is ruined, but the baths are fed by a natural hot spring and the elaborate water system and the lead sheeting that lines the pools, all that stuff still works 2000 years later! Amazing. Basically, I was in the computer center Thursday night desperately searching for a place to spend the weekend. It just happened to be cheapest train ticket. Though in hindsight, maybe not. When you book online, there are only certain places where you can pick up tickets, so I had to book a round trip from Gatwick airport and then purchase train tickets between Falmer and Gatwick. That was like another £10 on top of my fare. Anyway, I guess it doesn’t matter. The experiences were priceless.
I arrive and as I walked up the street to find my hostel, the main thoroughfare is just lined with shops....and people are just walking around and shopping! I swear, that’s all people seem to do there. It’s maybe 10-11am when I arrived. Not sure, it felt later because I’d been up at 6 to get on my first train around 7, but it was definitely before 2pm because that was check-in time and I was too early. I dropped off my bag and walked around. There were cool street performers playing music and doing comedy. There was a guy covered in gold paint who looked like a wizard statue, I unfortunately didn't get a picture of him. I didn’t want to hit the baths because it looked really crowded. I bought a sandwich and soda and went back to the pub/restaurant attached to my hostel for a pint...eh? oh yeah... huh.... I actually still have that soda. Fanta Orange. Fanta is so huge here.
The class I was taking was about British Culture and our teacher wanted us to interact with different citizens to get different perspectives about life here. We had to interview three different people and earlier in Bath I'd stumbled across a reporter’s notebook for about £.63p and I copied out two sets of my interview questions and left spaces for answers. My questions were basic like: where you from, what do you do, what do you like, voting and religious practices and then their personal opinions about what British culture is and do they consider themselves British (as opposed to English or something else like Scottish, etc...).
And so, I found myself sitting alone, nursing a pint and wondering who I could interview. There was a girl to my left eating and a guy to my right who was dressed as if he were possibly waiting for someone and another guy who sat at a table opposite me. He'd walked in with his work equipment -- like a bucket and rope and tools. He wore overalls and boots and he was covered from head to toe in splashes of white paint. He has the Euro-Mohawk going, but it’s longer than what I’ve gathered as chic. His is like maybe 4-5 inches long, so it was closer to an actual Mohawk....He rolled a cigarette, drank his pint and gazed at the passers-by, which were to my right and behind me. I pretty much figured I'd interview him, but it took me while to get the nerve to go talk to him. I kept looking over at him and at times he seemed creepy-- like hardcore - like some biker dude that should be covered in tattoos and piercings.... And sometimes he’d look just tired, like he’d had a hard day...and occasionally he looked sad or lonely. I was worried about bothering him if he just wanted to mellow out and have a pint.
I finished my pint and got up to talk to him...it sort of reminded me...-- Well, I don’t know if you know, but roaches (...ahem...) have antennae near their hind legs and if there’s danger, the message to “run!” will go to their legs before it goes to their brains. I got up and for a second I thought “What am I doing?!?” like I had no control over my legs but I couldn’t freak out too much, in 5 steps I was there. I quickly explained my project and ask if it’s okay that I interview him. He says it’s alright. I offered to get him something while I was getting myself another pint, but he said that it wasn’t necessary.
I won't get into our conversation now. Perhaps I’ll put the interview online or just email it to those who like it. We talked for an hour before he apologetically excused himself. I was incredibly stoked. It went great and he was really cool. I celebrated with a burger...and strike up a conversation with Cory, a Chicago native who had sat next to me to eat. We talked for hours before we headed to bed - Cory was off to Stonehenge the next day. I stop by my room, then go to the bathroom. In that time, three of my hostel-roommates have arrived. They are headed back to the pub...and ask if I'd like to go. I returned with them and we chat over another pint. Two are from South Africa and the 3rd is from Australia. After sitting in the pub drinking 4 pints of cider over the course of like 7 hours (!!! sad huh?) I go up and sleep. One day down, two to go!