Bath/Stonehenge

This past weekend I went to the city of Bath and I also got to see Stonehenge!!! It was such a blast! The first thing we saw in Bath were the Roman Baths, of course. They are the remains of the complex of public baths established during the Roman occupation of Britain between the 1st and 4th century AD. They are the only natural hot springs in the UK! It was very cool to see, and the thought that the Romans created this such a long time ago is just amazing.

This is the main bath. We got to go down there but you were advised not to touch the water because it is still the same as it was back then...which means not purified and swimming with bacteria. 

This is Bath Abbey....right next to the baths but not near as cool. 

This pool is the last bath that the people would get into after all of the hot springs. This one was very cold and was supposed to close their pores.

It took my the longest time to figure out! so the floor was built on top of these little stacks so that the heat from the springs would go underneath the floor and warm it for the people who were walking on it! I thought it was very cool.

This is a map of what the baths looked like. As you can see there are more than just one. The main big pool was the community pool. Then there were separate ones that were for specific things. The men and women were separated for bathing, so two of the smaller ones were for that. There was also a healing pool, a changing room....and honestly, I can't remember what all!

This is kelcie testing the water after it's been purified....it was still hot and nasty! bleh!

This is the healing pool. People would just sit in here and hope that the water would heal them.

                                                                              Wells Cathedral

One of the smaller pools.

This is the oldest thorn tree in England. They normally dont grow in England actually, but for some reason they do in glastonbury.

These are the remains of Glastonbury Cathedral.It was one of the richest and most powerful medieval foundations. It also is apart of the myth of King Arthur. His remains are said to have been found here....but then again, they've also been "found" in Wales, France, Germany, a lot of others, and last of all, South America? Yeah....that's a little far fetched

Pulteney Bridge. One of the worlds most beautiful bridges.

our hostel in bath :)

us and our friends having dinner :)

At night we went to this place called Komedia and heard some Irish and English comedians....they were actually very funny and we could understand them!!! yay!

STONEHENGE!!!!

This is a place i've been wanting to go to for a LONG time! It's so amazing and yet such a mystery. It began being built in 3000BC and wasn't finished until 2000BC...that's a thousand year long project!!! They still dont' know exactly why it was built, but I think their best assumption is that it was for keeping track of the revolution of the sun leading to their understanding of time. There are two rocks that show the two solstices, summer and winter. One rock is lined up with the sun on the winter solstice and the other on the summer solstice. The sun would also rise (i think) in a certain arch according to what month it was. for example, if it was july then it would shine through the "july" arch. The stones weren't even from around here either. The small stones were from wales which are 240km away and had to be transported by river, and the big stones were from 30km away. They weighed up to 45 tons, the same as seven elephants! One stone took 200 men and 12 days to move....incredible! They think that they used pulleys and ramps to move and set the stones up. One thing they don't really know is how they put the top stones on. You cant really see it in these pictures but the vertical stones have little notches in them so that the horizontal stones on top would fit kind of like a puzzle. Other than that, they think this was a worshiping place, maybe for the sun god.

This is the hind stone...and I can't remember why it was significant :/

This is what Stonehenge looked like when it was finished.

This was a very cool place to go! I'm so glad I finally got to see it with my own eyes :) although.....it was FREEZING!!! all of the pictures of stonehenge show the sun shining...yeah....the english people know how to fool you. THEY NEVER SEE THE SUN!

Manchester United Soccer game!

Kelcie and I went with our friends Sam, Alex, and my roommate Katie to a Manchester United game last last Monday (18th of February). It was so much fun! It was the fifth round of the FA cup against Reading. Both teams are in the premiere league, but if you know anything about soccer then you know that Manchester United is #1 :) and of course....Manchester won 2-1.

This is the outside of the stadium :)

our seats were pretty high, but we could still see the field just fine!

A man beside me, who was quite drunk I might add, informed me that the Streford End of the field is the favored end. At half time the score was 0-0 but he was just convinced that Manchester would score now that they had the Stretford End.....he may have been drunk, but he was right! 

Sam, Kelcie, Katie, me, and Alex

After the game we had a long journey.....it ended at 10 at night, and we didn't have to catch our train until 1 in the morning. As you can see, we were trying to pass the time.....

After we got off of our first train, which was at 2 in the morning, we then had to wait three hours until the train at 5am. So this time we decided to go to a nearby mcdonalds in the city of Leeds. This mcdonalds was PACKED! these crazy kids were partying on a monday night! we were so astonished....our friend Sam ended up asking a group sitting next to us why they were out so late and they were surprised and just said "eh, it's monday night, we're just hanging out." .......at 3 am.....on a monday night....maybe im just not accustomed to the party life haha. anyways, so kelcie and i got Cadbury egg mcflurry's!!! We all know I"m a chocolate lover....and I have found my new favorite chocolate over here! i'm in love with cadbury!!! I know we have some in the states, but it's made by Hershey for some odd reason and it doesnt taste the same. Plus, they have so many more varieties over here!!! I'm going to the Cadbury Factory at the end of march :) But apart from being dead tired, it was actually quite amusing. We even met a Harry Potter extra! (and we all know how much I LOVE harry potter!!!) she was in the very last battle scene....so i guess i know what im doing when i get home! putting that scene in slow mo hahaha. 

After we got on our last train we FINALLY made it home at 6:30.....but was it worth it??? absolutely! :)

Edinburgh, Scotland

So once again, this is a very late post, but I've been so busy lately that it's hard to take the time to sit down and write!
Kelcie and I went to Edinburgh all by ourselves!!! we were so proud :)
We stayed in a hostel which we were really impressed with. It was nice and it had a restaurant/bar attached that had live music at night.

We saw Edinburgh Castle which is the inspiration for the Harry Potter castle.

For the rest of the first day that we got there we just walked around Edinburgh and looked at the city, it's so pretty!

The next day we woke up and climbed Arthurs Seat! It's a mountain....and let me tell ya...it's quite the hike. Kelcie and I had to force ourselves to keep climbing so that two little kids behind us wouldn't pass us up! But once we got to the top it was totally worth it. You could see the entire city!!!

this is the top, absolutely gorgeous! and we had a WONDERFUL day to climb. It's usually freezing in England so we thought Scotland would be worse since it's north of us....but it was actually warmer! and sunny! I got some sun!!!

Afterwards we went to a cute little Cafe called the Elephant House. This is the place where J.K. Rowling wrote the first two Harry Potter books. 

This is the table J.K. Rowling would sit at when she wrote her books. It's the perfect view for the Castle that inspired Hogwarts!

The bathroom is COVERED in notes to J.K. Rowling. We found this funny the "entrance to the chamber of secrets" haha. You would only get this if you have watched Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets....

This is another one. "This way to the ministry". Again, you would only get it if you've seen harry potter, sorry!

After lunch we went on an underground tour. The new city of Edinburgh is built on top of the old city and you can actually walk some of the streets underneath, it's pretty neat! 

This picture kind of shows you where we were. Underneath this bridge in what they call the "vaults". The merchants used to use them for their work. Like, shoe makers would hire people and rent out one of the vaults and the workers would be in there all day everyday making shoes. This went on for a long time until they closed them due to the terrible working conditions.

Edinburgh is a very cool place!!! apparently it's #10 on the top ten places to visit, whoo hoo!

Madrid, Spain!

Hola!

Last weekend Kelcie, Alex, and I went to Madrid, it was so beautiful! it was so sunny that kelcie and I had to break out our sun glasses....we were excited :) i even got a sunburn!!!!! which isnt saying much for me....but hey, I can't get them in England.

So in Madrid we did A LOT of walking around and exploring the city. The first couple days we went around to all of the different parks which were very pretty.
One park had the crystal palace which was neat

Another park was FULL of peacocks! it seriously looked like Alice and Wonderland.

And then there were parks for old people! they had stationary bicycles and stretching stations, it was great! it was mostly older men that were there....but you could totally tell that it was a social outing haha.

This is Kelcie and Alex testing out the stationary bikes!

We also, of course, tested out all of the local food! Here's some Paella.....SO GOOD.

we also ate gelato, churros, and sangria. but paella is definitely my favorite :)

Another place we went was the "Templos de debod". They are Egyptian ruins that were going to be destroyed so they brought them over to spain! they were very pretty in the sunset :)

We happened to go to Madrid during one of their annual carnivals! It was called Carnaval de Madrid. there were so many people there.....like more than Disney World. there were thousands. it was crazy.

In this picture you can kind of tell that there are a lot of people, but there were so many more! every restaurant we went to was cram packed full......it was an adventure trying to find food :( but we saw a parade which was really neat! and then afterwards there were fireworks. loved it!

                     This guy came up to me and kissed my hand and held it up to his chest.....it was so                     embarrassing, but i couldnt say anything because he spoke spanish!

Madrid is definitely one of my favorite cities! I would go back in a heartbeat!!! The only thing is that they're very umm.....free spirited and.....outspoken haha