August 12th, 2010

August 12, 2010

Today has been a substantially good day. Everything worked out for it being thrown together last minute. We got up with time for me to send some things home that were taking up too much room in my pack. I got rid of some shirts and a rugby ball I bought at Trinity College. From there we made our way to the train station to book our tickets for bath. With our tickets booked, there was some time to spare. Guess where we spent it? Let me give you a hint. There is a Starbucks in the train station. Lol. Our train left a little late, but we arrived with plenty of time to check into our hostel. It was a little misleading, because the bar tender and receptionist were the same person.lol Once we made the journey up the smallest and steepest stairs ever, we headed to the ancient Roman Baths. The experience was amazing and purely unfathomable for me. I have the hardest time putting history into a time line and to where I can understand just how long ago emperors and slaves used these baths. It is getting easier with learning more European history and putting a date with events. I was able to enjoy these baths so much, because it is the only thing I remember from my world history classes. Lol. I just remember learning about how all the naked Romans would take baths together. Lol. Of course it had a greater purpose than that, which I now know. Even though some pools were used mainly for pleasure, the main reason why the rich and the poor would travel long distances to visit the baths were to seek healing and worship the goddess, which the Romans believed provided the hot springs. Another reasons was to request vengeance through the hands of this goddess, on the people who have hurt them or stolen from them (I can't remember her name or what exactly she was the goddess of). They would write their requests on thin sheets of lead and throw them into the bath. For example, someone may have a suspicion that someone had stolen some of their money. It was believed the more specific you were with naming the parson, the more likely it was for the request to be answered. Some would even have the messages written fir them, because they could not write in Latin themselves. There would be wounded warriors to children to princesses sharing these baths. It was simply breathtaking to witness the same pools that were used by high priests and roman princesses hundreds of years ago. There is still water flowing into the pools today. I was surprised how hot it was. Like a hot tub. All around, it was a great museum and great experience. I am glad things turned out the way they did and we had to come over here. It is only about 20 min east of Whales. 

After the baths and getting lost trying to find our way back, Emily and I went out for tapas and a drink. It was soo good to enjoy some Mexican food. I feel like all I have been eating over here si far is sandwiches. Knowing we still hadn't made reservations for where to sleep tomorrow night, we headed straight back to the hostel bar to use the Internet. A few hours later, we decided we are going to take the train back to London, the Chunnel train from there into Brussels. We also completed booking for three days in Brussels and three more after that in Berlin. It felt good to have the next week planned out and the only thing to worry about is transportation from Brussels to Berlin, but that will be easy enough to do when we arrive at the train station in Brussels. I will get all the information I need for a train to Berlin three days later. 
With all that figured out, we were both able to relax. Emily headed up to shower and ended up going to bed, while I stayed in the pub and enjoyed a couple drinks with two of our room mates. They are both from Sydney. It is now one a.m. and i am off to bed. Talk to you all in Belgium!! We will see how it goes not speaking English for the first time in Europe. Wish us luck! 

All the best,

Kurt

P.s. Enjoy the hot hot weather that is coming your way. Oh and it was sweatshirt weather still.