in Life's name and for Life's sake

Today was our third day in Bath, and we didn’t really do too much. The day started off with us waking up late, so that we had to run to make it to breakfast on time. After we ate, we went straight to the Jane Austen Center (which is here because Jane lived in Bath and set two or so books here). Mom and Corinne took the tour, while Dad and I went exploring elsewhere. (I would have taken the tour, but it was £7.50 per person and I didn’t want to pay $15 to walk through a bunch of Jane Austen/Regency memorabilia.)

It turned out to be all right that I didn’t go to the Jane Austen tour; Dad and I found something much more amusing instead. Down a little back alley, right by the hotel we’re staying at, is a little bookstore called “Mr. B’s emporium of reading delights.” It is relatively small, but absolutely adorable. The store is owned and operated by “Mr. B,” a middle-aged blonde Brit with great taste in literature. The place may be small but it is crammed full of bookshelves, and on every shelf there are notations below books that Mr. B particularly likes and recommends. Dad and I talked to him for a while, and he seems like a really genial guy. The store stocks mostly paperbacks at reasonable prices—a must for any book lover. I certainly would spend hours and hours in that bookstore if I lived here. As it is, I got some good video footage of the inside of the store and its proprietor, and bought a novelette by Charlotte Bronte that promises to make for some good reading.

After seeing the Jane Austen Museum, we went back to Pulteney Street Bridge (the one I forgot the name of the other day). I ended up buying Rick a map of Ireland—the political one was pretty expensive, but I found a really nice one that, while it did not show political party affiliation, was a third of the price. After that, we took a rather roundabout way back to our hotel. We didn’t do too much in the afternoon, just walked around a lot. We ended up going to dinner at a little place right by the hotel. I’m sitting back in the hotel now, watching the X-Files on TV (I was very excited to find it; I’ve been almost regretting not bringing my set of DVDs).

(This is a complete aside, unrelated to the above, but Great Britain appears to be so much more green than back home. Green meaning eco-friendly, although it's certainly green in terms of the amount of vegetation, too. I think it has to do with the amount of precipitation. But back to the green -- it's really everywhere. On waste bags, in shop windows, on buses, even in the hotel bathroom! I love it. It's something I'd like to bring back to the States. I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for more evidence of this.)

Tomorrow we drive out to Stratford-upon-Avon after breakfast. We’re seeing Macbeth there tomorrow night, so I won’t be updating then. That’s the only night we’re staying in Stratford; the day after tomorrow, we’ll be driving to a small town on the Irish Sea called Conwy, where we’ll stay for two days. I’m having a really good time; maybe sometime in Conwy I’ll have the time to upload pictures!

I write this whbile sitting in a room in an apartment in Bath, and it feels so surreal.  I think it might be because I'm not quite excited for this yet, though how that's happened I have no clue.  I mean, I'm excited...but the plane ride felt like a normal plane ride (except a bit longer) and the drive felt like a normal drive (except a bit shorter) and the cars are like normal cars (except a bit smaller) and the shops are all the same (except a bit pricier).  In a way it's like I've traveled halfway around the world but I can't get away from home yet.

I think I might be feeling like this because this is very different from the last time I came to England.  Then, we only stayed in London, and my cousin Carissa was with us.  It's interesting, because my sister and I get along so much better and have so many more things to say to each other when she's there.  Of course, this time around she isn't, and it's just my family.  This is weird in and of itself; usually we don't vacation alone.  Usually we meet up with people, or we go to visit relatives, or some such thing.  But this is a full-blown vacation, and there was no one there to meet us when we got off of the plane.  For some reason that seems to be making all of the difference.

Basically, it comes down to: there are more people for me to miss this time around.

Another thing that's bugging me is Script Frenzy.  At the rate I'm moving, I have to write about 2000 words a day to cross the finish line in time.  I really just want to give up on it, but something about myself won't let me.  I've started this and I will carry it through--I can't allow myself to give up.  The problem is that everything I am writing is shit.  I started with characters I liked, but they deserve a novel rather than a play.  Actually, I have a feeling they may turn into my November novel, assuming I develop them a little more and don't have anything better to write by then.  That's one way in which Script Frenzy will have helped me, at least.

As far as our day and what we actually did: we left our house at about 11pm CA time yesterday to get our flight out of LAX.  We flew to London Heathrow Airport.  When we got there, we picked up our rental car and had fun with confusing British street signs and directions.  Eventually we ended up in Bath, after getting lost several more times.  Normally this wouldn't be so bad, but gas (or should I say petrol?) is ridiculously priced here, so the mistakes we made cost us more money than I like to think about.

We finally got to the hotel where we're staying.  The Harington actually owns a small apartment down the street from the hotel proper, and that's where my family is spending the first two nights of our stay.  It's really nicely decorated and furbished -- there's a flatscreen TV and DVD player, full kitchen, washer and dryer...pretty much everything we could need.  Apparently it'll look really nice when compared to some of the places we'll be staying later during this trip.

The hotel and apartment are both on small one-way streets, so there's no side-of-the-road parking available.  Dad had to go park the car in a car park.  The hotel attendant gave him directions, but he's still getting used to driving on the left, so the results were tragicomical.  It took him forever to find the car park, and he got pulled over by a cop on the way for running the same red light twice.  He hadn't even noticed that there was a light for this particular turn, so he had just driven right through.  But there was a bus in front of him that began to back up, so he had to back up.  When the bus left, he pulled forward again, effectively running the light for a second time.  The cops didn't even get to him right away--according to his version of events, they found him later and told him what he'd done (he had no idea).   When he told them this was his first day ever driving in Great Britain, they took it easy on him and told him to be more careful in the future.

When he got back we all went out to eat (we were starving).  Then we bought some groceries and brought them back to the apartment so that we would have stuff to cook for dinners.  Then we went back out to look at this bridge over the Avon River, which runs through the city of Bath (this is the same Avon river upon which Stratford-upon-Avon sits).  We walked along the bridge for a bit and found this awesome shop selling old maps.  When I say old, I mean some of these were hand-printed over 300 years ago.  I was really tempted to get one for Rick--it was a map of Ireland from the 1800s denoting the political affiliation of the counties and showing how many MPs were serving each party from each district.  I would've bought it, if it weren't for the fact that it cost almost $100.  I still might, though, if he says he's interested in it.  More likely I'll find him some Irish National cricket team gear.

We turned in pretty early because we were all completely wiped.  I can't speak for mom, dad, or Corinne, but I have not slept more than 3 hours in the last 24, and those were all on the plane ride.  Add that to five hours of sleep the night before we left due to staying up late to finish packing and you get a rather tired girl.  So tired, in fact, that I'm going to end this entry now, eat some dinner, and then probably go to sleep.