Who could ever tire of Bath?

Maybe my favorite place I've been in England has been Bath. It was extremely picturesque and what England should look like. The trip was kind of a spur of the moment decision.... we took the bus there which took about three hours. There was the Roman Bath there which is a natural hot spring that the Romans built a spa around. We drank the water which was completely disgusting but they told us that it's healthy for you. We even drank the whole glass.

We walked around a lot and it rained a lot (surprise, surprise). There were a lot of shops and lots of little streets. We went to the Assembly Room which are really big and have huge chandeliers in them and then we made one of the biggest mistakes of our trip by going to the Jane Austen Center. It was extremely funny and the lady giving us the little spiel was crazy! They told us about her life and it was in a flat down the street to the one that Jane Austen lived in. Basically the whole thing was "This was a dress that was used around the time Jane Austen was here in Bath," and "This is when she mentions Bath in her books Northanger Abbey and Persuasion." It was kind of fun as there was a poster of the "language of the fan" and we watched a horrible movie about Jane in Bath with a news anchor person that was extremely full of herself.

Definitely the highlight of our little daytrip was going on the Crescent which is the street that Anne Elliot chases Captain Wentworth at the end of the BBC version of Persuasion. Yes I know, amazing. This only happens in the movie though, not in the book. Still..... In the movie she also has this really awkward kiss that takes thirty seconds for her to finally kiss him (we timed it). Really awkward. Apparently there's a tear in her eye though so the director wanted to keep it. Makes me laugh.

Annemarie and I re-enacted the whole thing, without a Captain Wentworth of course. Annemarie recorded it on her camera and you can watch it! It's hilarious. My favorite is watching the other people watch us... ha ha. I couldn't stop laughing. At the end I was holding the camera for Annemarie for the awkward kiss but I couldn't handle it. I stopped recording and she said that it wasn't long enough so she just held the camera. I was laughing too hard.

We ate at a lovely little cafe where I had créme brulée, mmmm. Then we went to an organ concert in Bath Abbey that I loved. It was a pretty organ and we don't have enough abbeys in the states, I am completely convinced.

Food, Glorious Food

As promised to Charlie, I am going to update blogs. It seems like a very large task though as I just went on the longest holiday of my life and I LOVED it. I have decided to start on the food, as it was perhaps my favorite part.

Disclaimer is that I did lose my camera in Rome. Hopefully someone found it and is somehow converted because of our pictures in front of the chapel in France. I had hope right up til the end that we may find it but I've given up now. I am really sad not to have the pictures but, lucky for me, I can steal pictures.

The glorious food really started in France. England has good chocolate, but not a whole lot else. Yorkshire pudding is quite delightful, but none was partaken of in London. Plus, I totally forgot to find a Ben's Cookies so I didn't get any of that goodness either.

French food was delicious! The first day we were there we found this place that had the most delicious crepes I have ever eaten in my life coated with Nutella. Watching him make them made them even more delicious.

After obtaining our Nutella crepes, we went and ate them by the riverside where Gene Kelly, Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant have been. Sigh.

No joke at all, we honestly lived off of baguettes and nutella for the majority of our meals. It never got old though, mmmm, baguettes. Not to mention they are super cheap! Nutella really has to be the best invention ever, it makes everything taste better. Baguettes and nutella is basically heaven.

We did eat out one night which was lovely. A little café that played "It's Raining Men" so we felt right at home. We had meat for the first time on our trip and authentic French onion soup, in France. I know.

Another delight in Paris was a little pastry shop by our hostel. They really had the best pastries I've ever had. We only discovered it our last day so I didn't get to partake as much as I would have liked but it was still glorious. They put chocolate on everything, chocolate on croissants is especially good.

Italian food was amazing. Every day we had gelato and spaghetti and pizza. Pizza is really thin there and one order is one pizza but oh so good. The gelato was exquisite, my favorites being mango, chocolate and caramel. I probably miss that the most about Italy.... there were so many gelato places too! We went to a different one every day. The best one was one in Venice that took us like an hour to find. The pasta was very good too. This is a picture of the first dinner we had (the place I lost my camera). Mmmmm.... pizza.

The best meal was the last one, it was the best spaghetti of my life. We also went to this amazing place in Venice that delicious. I don't know what I ate but John had lasagna.

To finish things off, I traveled on Swiss Air and they gave me free chocolate. Yay for Swiss chocolate!