The last two fields trip were also rather splendid. The third was to the city of Bath, specifically for a tour of the Roman baths. However, a few of us--Kellie, Alexia, Lauren, Marie, Sean, and I--went to the Thermae Bath Spa to indulge in the hot spring water for which the city was established. It was £22 for 2 hours, but with two heated pools (one of which was of the rooftop variety!), four scented steam rooms, individual footbaths, and a giant waterfall shower I'd say it was worth it.
From there we headed to the Sally Lunn House for lunch. Not only is the house the oldest in Bath (ca. 1480's) it is the origin site for the famous Sally Lunn buns. It's hard to adequately describe them and I'd imagine even harder to get a good mental picture, but picture a bun that's about the size of 5 pancakes stacked on top of one another, but about as light as a regular dinner roll as infinitely more delicious. Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, among others, who have vacationed and/or owned vacation homes in Bath have sung Sally's praises. My selection saw the bun cut and toasted into smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwiches. Others opted for cinnamon butter, clotted cream with jam, etc. After that we toured the Roman baths which were phenominal, and made a pit stop in Bath Abbey before heading back to Oxford.
Our fourth and final field trip was a two-parter, to Kenilworth Castle and Stratford-upon-Avon. The weather that day was absolutely perfect for running around the castle ruins and picknicking on it's lawns. After this trip and the previous one to the Baths I realized just how cool ruins are. It's like standing in the past!
After our exam there was a healthy bit of celebrating and whatnot, followed by parting ways only a day or two later. Kellie, Lauren, Sean, Caitie, and I stayed in Keble College for 2 nights afterwards and hung around Oxford for a bit more; I was even visited by my friend Jackie (from NYC, goes to BU, in London for the semester) and Lisa, Kellie and I's amazing host during our Paris trip.
But now Kellie and I are staying in south Wimbledon between our post-semester trips (with a friend of one of the doctor's I worked with over the summer). Luckily we were able to drop all of our luggage at her house before heading to Radolfzell, Germany via Zurich last Monday from which we returned late on Thursday. (It's a tiny town on the Bodensee, making it a great summer vacation spot for old people in the summer, but Kellie and I went in order for me to get tattooed by this amazing artist that lives and works there.) Last night Kellie and I went to see Three Days of Rain which I thought wasn't bad, but more excitingly we got tickets to see Wicked on the 4th! And undoubtedly ever more exciting we are heading to Prague in the morning for two days and then it's off on our last trip to Barcelona on Wednesday.
I'll force myself to update with pictures from both places once we're back in London--promise!
