I went to Bath and got a Shower

As exams are coming up this week at the Business school, I and a bunch of my girlfriends who also have partners in the program decided we should go on a trip together to get away from the stress of studying. The group of us were a big international melting pot - there was Alka, Vinita and Bhakti from India, Nina from Denmark, Karen from Australia, Janick from France, Alina from Romania, Mikki and me from the USA. We all left after work so we still had a chance to go out for dinner on Friday night. Bath is just a 45 minute train ride from where I work near Didcot. We stayed in a B&B just to the west of the city center, which had a lot of English country charm and a nice hot breakfast. It rained the whole time, but that didn't stop us from having a great time! We're already excited to start planning another trip together.

A bit about Bath: It has been known for its hot spring baths since about 800BC when the Romans were in the area. They liked the springs so much that they built a whole complex for them. The Baths themselves still exist as both a tourist and an archaeological site. Archaeologists have found all kinds of items at the bottom of the pools, including over 13,000 coins! There's not much else for industry around there, though it seems the city was a stop on the way up the Avon River where boats could unload cargo into warehouses to be shipped to other areas of the country.

Friday night we went out for some Thai food, then went to a couple pubs. The first pub was called "Mole's Pub" and it was located in a cave-like basement with lots of little nooks and crannies to explore. Neat place!

Unfortunately they were at the end of their set, and the pub was closing (most bars close at 11pm in England) so we had to find another place to hang out! The city center was bustling at night, and unlike Oxford, you didn't see lots of cops and falling-over-drunk college students. I have been reading a lot about England's drinking problems, so it was nice to see that it's not always that way. Anyway, we had a blast at night and didn't get back to the B&B until about 12:30. Here's what the Bath Abbey looks like at night:


The next morning we had our breakfast and left for the city. Alka was nice enough to offer to take our luggage back to Oxford since she had driven to Bath. That meant we had more time to explore the city without lugging all of our overnight things around with us. Our first stop was to make sure we saw the old Roman Baths. Here is some of the group in front of the entrance (clockwise: Karen, Janick, Mikki, Alina, Bhakti, Nina; missing were Alka and Vinita, who had already seen the baths and went exploring the shops instead):


Here is part of an old temple wall that has been reconstructed after being found on the site:


And here's what I thought was really cool: old curses that people had written and thrown into the pool:


Here's a close-up of one of them:

Here's Karen, Nina and me in front of one of the drains at the baths:


And here's the main bath. It really is that green from all the algae and other creatures living in it. There were signs all around not to drink or even touch the water! You can see the steam rising up because of all the rain.


This is a piece of an old roof, which shows how the Romans used hollow bricks to make the arches more lightweight. Pretty clever stuff!


This was a weird part. This area was all dark, but when I looked in, I thought I saw what looked like big eggs all around. Turns out they're stalagmites! The sign in there reads "hypocaust" which is an old Roman term for "central heating" (thanks Wikipedia for that definition!) I'd suggest looking it up if you're interested, it's pretty neat! I heard from a tour guide there that they would have children cleaning out the ashes from the heating system because they were the only ones who could fit down there! Yuck!


After that experience, we needed to do something that wasn't so damp, so we went to the Jane Austen Center for Afternoon Tea. I'm not a big Jane Austen fan, but the place was really charming and put on a great tea. The sandwiches weren't the best (butter & cheese and butter & cucumber), but the sweets and the tea itself were delicious! Most of the girls had never been to Afternoon tea before, so it really was a treat - and a true English one at that! We all felt very English and very proper.


We spent the rest of the day poking around shops and seeing sights like the Royal Crescent:


The inside of the Bath Abbey, where the choir was practicing - so pretty!


And the outside of the Bath Abbey:


The Pulteney Bridge (apparently one of four in the world lined with shops on both sides)


And last, but not least, this handsome pig statue:

Why I love Abingdon

Abingdon is a town just south of Oxford, about a 15 minute bus ride away. I decided to go there a couple of weekends ago because I found out they have a Polish store where you can get Polish food. Well, the store wasn't that great, but the rest of the town was awesome! This is what I had in mind when I found out we would be living in England.



The town square is pictured above. Oxford doesn't really have a town square, so it was neat to see what one looks like in an English town. They have a lot of great shopping around, most notably a Woolworths (kind of like a small version of Wal-Mart) and a Waitrose grocery store (similar to a Whole Foods). Both do not exist in Oxford, and both made me very happy, as it's nice to be able to get cheap household items and it's wonderful to get good quality groceries. As Oxford is a college town (average age seems to be about 19), it was so refreshing to see people of all ages and all walks of life out shopping on a Saturday.



Outside of the town square is Abingdon Abbey gardens, which are quite nice for a stroll.


The old ruins in the garden are pretty neat. I don't yet know the history, but I did get a self-portrait in them. :)




Needless to say, I will be back to Abingdon, if for nothing more than the fabulous groceries!

Paul the Football Goalie

As you may or may not know, Paul has been the Templeton College football goalie this season. You can see him in action near the goal on the right. Paul's wearing the light colored shirt.

I didn't go to any games this season except the last one, which they won against Magdalen College 6-3. It was really cold and blustery on the field ("pitch" as they say here), but I braved the chill to take a few pictures and support the team (though they didn't have any benches to sit on). Note the "colorize" feature i used on the camera :) )

Mardi Gras at Templeton

Mardi Gras isn't exactly celebrated in England (though they do have "Pancake Day" on the same day), so Paul's college held a Mardi Gras theme guest dinner this weekend. We got masks for the event, which featured a champagne reception followed by a dinner of jambalaya, catfish and American cheesecake, with dancing afterwards.

Here's us with our friends Vinita and Varun - can you guess who's who with the masks? haha! (Thanks for the blinking beads, Mom!)


And here's Paul with some of his classmates at the afterparty. You can't quite see it, but there was a big chocolate fountain in the back!


We enjoyed being out at the Templeton campus, as it's far enough from the city center that you really feel like you're outside of the city. Oxford is small enough that we can still see the stars at night (unlike Chicago!), but it's still very urban feeling.

On Saturday night we went to visit our friends Brian and Mikki, who live in a 400 year old cottage about a 20 minute bike ride from our flat. I can see why the like the place, it's really cool to be there. They've got a thatched roof, and all of the doorways are about 5'8", so the guys have to remember to duck when they walk between rooms! The village is called South Hinksey, and the cottage used to be the village bakery. Brian and Mikki told us that if they have something delivered, they can either give their address, or say "the old bake house in South Hinksey". Pretty cool, huh? Though, I do not envy their commute into town - you have to carry your bike up about 50 steps to get over the railroad tracks! It's good exercise, though!

This week my boss comes back from paternity leave (men get 2 weeks here!), so that will be another adjustment at work. We were talking to some friends from Saudi Arabia at the Mardi Gras dinner, and learned that there, you get one paid day off for paternity leave. In the States, you legally get zero paid days off. I won't get started on what people get in Scandinavian countries, but in the UK anyway, it's pretty darn good compared to what you get in other parts of the world.

Paul is going to some sort of business fair tomorrow, so we'll see if he finds anything interesting. It's hard to think about a job when you're doing school work for something like 80 hours per week!

Why MBA students are not professional athletes

You might recognize someone (wearing red) in the Hertford M4 boat. Pictures here:
http://www.bigblade-photos.com/rowing/events/2008/ot08/rowingon/Hertford%20M4.html

NHS advice to wanna-be fathers

I was looking through the NHS website the other day, and came across this sound advice for any man who wants to become a father...

"make the decision to quit the fags today if you want to make a baby."
From:
http://www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk/articles/article.aspx?articleId=1909

I think something was lost in the translation...for those of you who don't know, a "fag" is what the English call a cigarette! Sure sounds funny to an American!

Biking the Isis

There is a river that runs through Oxford. Before it enters Oxford, it is called the Thames. When it leaves Oxford, it is called the Thames. But in Oxford, it's called the Isis. Why that is, I'm not sure, beyond some sort of snobbery. Either way, it's a nice place to take a bike ride.

We decided to try biking down the river path a couple weekends ago, soon after flooding had become a problem around Oxfordshire. It was the first glimpse of sunshine we'd had in a whle, so we felt we had to take advantage. However, we only got about as far as Iffley because the field we were supposed to go through was flooded with about a foot of water!

Here's Paul on his bike, with typical English winter weather in the background. We have a partly sunny day about once per week, and this was one of them.


This picture gives you an idea of what the bike path looks like as you head south from Oxford. You pass by a lot of cute villages and a few pubs!


At certain points along the river, there are lots of swans and ducks. Normally swans are territorial, but when children are regularly brought along to throw bread at them, they congregate and pay more attention to the good eats than they do to each other. Here we saw a family of swans (you can see the gray teenage ones).


And here's a neat house with a thatched roof that we saw in Iffley.


Also in Iffley is an old Norman church, built in 1170, called St Mary's. Neither of us had ever seen a Norman church before, and we had no idea it was anything all that special until we went home and googled it!


So that's kind of what it's like living around here. The more you wander around, the more random old things you find.