The Cliffs of INSANITY!!!

"Good-humoured, unaffected girls, will not do for a man who is used to sensible women. They are two distinct orders of being" - Jane Austen

(I couldn't find a quote that was relevant, but I thought I needed to quote Jane here)

We are currently in BATH!! And we have been since Friday night. The city is beautiful with all it's super old buildings and such. Yesterday we didn't spend much time in the city, but slept in and then went to Stonehenge.

Oh wait! I forgot to post about the White Cliffs of Dover! Mostly because my computer died and I was too lazy to charge it for a couple days.

Friday we drove from London to Dover to see the cliffs because we had heard they were gorgeous. During the drive my thoughts went a little like this:
"Huh, this doesn't look much different than New Jersey."
"Oh, now we are on to Lancaster. Nice farms, rolling hills. Yup, Lancaster."
"Oooo, this is pretty. Wow, that is a lot of open space! And it's pretty!"
"Okay, okay, no longer the US. Definitely looks foreign now."
This was all to take away from
"Oh my gosh, I'm on the left side of the road and this is weird. Oh no! I have to turn.....eek! I really hope we don't die. Whew, we survived."

For a minute of two we thought it was going to rain, but instead the weather cleared and we had a lovely time. The clouds were dramatic and everything was beautiful.

DRAMATIC CLOUDS!!

Seriously though, it was a beautiful day. We didn't really want to leave, but we didn't have anywhere to sit (there were some ledges, but they are chalky and, well, TC was already trying to get the white dust off her pants). And we needed to get going so we would arrive in Bath at a decent hour (since Dover and Bath aren't at all close to each other)

The hostel here is much more hostel-like than the last. As in, it has fun wall paintings, more space, a common room, and people that actually seem nice. Ask me about our first night here sometime though. It was a fun adventure.

Moving on. Saturday we chilled because the crazy running around and stress of driving on the left side (not a lot of conscious stress, just enough extra mental energy to make it tiring) left us pretty tired. So we slept in and then decided we were really really hungry so we tried to find a grocery store. We ended up at something that sold food and clothes (but not quite a super walmart). We bought this:

That's right: a block of delicious cheese, some pepperoni, and crackers. I would like to take this time to be thankful for a traveling companion that is low maintenance. We were both completely satisfied with this meal :). But then we realized that we didn't want to eat all of it at once, but had nothing in which to store it. Fortunately, we were still in the parking lot of the store, so back in we went! For paper towels, bags, and sunglasses (because neither of us brought them from the US and it was quite sunny).

Then we got distracted by the clothing. Oops. I'm now the proud owner of plum-colored corduroy skinny pants. Who'd a thunk?

Back in the car and then to Stonehenge. For some reason I had thought for years that it was StoneHEDGE. Nope. It's not. It's "henge" which means "hanging". Hanging stones.

Anyway!

Once upon a time  I was looking up different places in the world I wanted to go. I saw some pictures of England and thought "there is no way that the sky is that blue, it must be photoshopped." Not so much anymore. The sky was incredibly blue (my point and shoot camera does not do it justice). And the contrast between the blue and the green of the grass and fields around Stonehenge - ah, so great!

Thistle!

Just in case you wouldn't have noticed a giant metal machine crossing the road...

So that was Saturday. Today is Sunday. We started out pretty chill again, thinking, "We'll go to the Roman Baths. That shouldn't take that long, not like the Tower of London when we ended up taking a couple hours, not realizing it was more than just a tower."

Nope, it didn't take two hours. It only took an hour and a half. Ha. But it was really cool to see. It's crazy when the audio tour person says things like, "This was carved in 73 AD." Because as an American, my brain doesn't think like that. We say things like, "WAY back in the day, like 1650, so and so did this." And that's OLD for us. America is such a baby (I mean that in the young way, not necessarily maturity, although...)

This picture really doesn't make it as cool looking as it was. Sorry. After the Baths, we went to the Fashion Museum. I'm not a fashion buff at all (shocking, I know), but the dresses from the 17th to early 20th centuries were kind of awesome. And we got to try on corsets, hoop-skirts, and dresses! So fun.

Then over the the Jane Austen history thing. It wasn't really a museum, but it was pretty informative. I found out that while she enjoyed her six week visit to Bath as a young adult, she really hated living here. Apparently it was very superficial and she just didn't care for it. However, it was a key location in both Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, so it definitely left an impact. Also, she came from a really big family - never knew that.

Bath is fun in that they let you try on stuff, a lot:

We are so cool.

Tonight on our way home after getting some delicious burgers and an Irish Pub, we walked by this:

It looks pretty awesome during the day (I think this is Bath Abbey - don't quote me though), but at night with it lit up, it's impressive. 

This has been a really long post. Now I know why it is good to update every day. Tomorrow we leave Bath and head up to Derbyshire. I'm excited to see more of the country-side, as I have a feeling it's going to be great.