We then went back to our hostel and slept until the early morning wake up to go actually see the Roman Baths. The Romans' developmental peak was in the 2nd and 3rd century. The baths occur because of the hot spring in the area spits hot water (over 105 degrees Fahrenheit) up to the Earth's surface. The water comes from the Mendip Hills and travels through a layer of limestone under the Earth's surface. The limestone acts as an aquifer and the water heats up throughout the 100 year pathway all the way to Bath, and then it shoots through the Bath fault. The Romans figured this out, and built a huge stone bath with lead pipes to carry the water to where they wanted it to be. When the Romans left Bath around the 6th century, the ceiling of their extravagant bathing center collapsed. There was then a flooding of the River Avon and landslides, and the baths were lost, believe it or not, until the 18th century. They were found when the area became populated, and a normal guy who had water in his basement hired someone to fix it, and the excavation found these gigantic structures and baths still filled with hot spring water. We got to tour the baths. The main bath now has no ceiling and is open for people to look at:
After the Baths, we went to the fashion museum, where a bunch of Princess Diana's dresses are and a spot where you got to try on corsets..so that was fun:
That night, we explored more of the night life of Bath at two different pub/clubs in the area. The bouncer at the first bar became Kelly, Maggie, Lauren, Alex and I's best friend. He even told us about his cute son, but failed to mention until the end of the conversation that he had a girlfriend. Too bad. DILF. After boredom of this bar, Revolution, we went to Belluchis which was more of a sports bar. Greer and I had a dance off with Joe and Alex. Greer and I lost miserably when Joe and Alex pulled off some crazy dance moves. We all went back to the hostel to sleep and knew we were in for another early morning wake up to head to Salisbury the next morning.
Stonehenge was the stop before Salisbury and was very interesting. The stones were brought from two different parts of the world in 2500 BC. The heaviest stones, which weigh about 45 tons, were brought to Stonehenge from 19 miles away while the other stones, weighing 4 tons, were brought there from Wales, 240 miles away. It's so unbelievable how before even the wheel was invented, these stones were able to be brought to Stonehenge from so far away. It really shows how much the world was connected and that people didn't just stay in the same spot. Here's my immediate flat (the super part of the superflat) with Stonehenge:
From Stonehenge we went directly to Salisbury Cathedral, which is another feat of its time. It is a Gothic cathedral whose foundation is only four feet underground because of its closeness to the underground water table. Inside the cathedral, you could just see how massive it was. We even got lucky, because while we were looking around the choir was singing and rehearsing for a wedding that was happening later that day. (Amazing place for a wedding, wow). But inside there was also a really cool Holy Water contraption. It was a reflecting pool, so you were able to see the workings of the ceiling by looking into the water. Here is the Cathedral:
After the cathedral, we went to get lunch at a cafe and were originally planning to go to Portsmouth, but last minute we decided to go back to London. We walked up to the train station, bought our tickets, and literally RAN to the train. We JUST made it, the conductor was yelling at us to get on because the train was leaving. Insane. Slept the entire way back, then slept some more when we got back to the flat.
(That was Saturday).
So Saturday night, Phil and I were on a beer pong team upstairs in our flat, and we won three games in a row. Pretty exciting occurance. We then went to Sports Cafe in Soho and danced like crazy, very typical.
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