 Goodbye, France. Hello, Bath! |
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10:40 am Paris time / 9:40 am UK time / 3:40 am USA time
We've left Paris. "Wig in a Box" is on the mp3 player, and we're on the Eurostar. Because we dumbassishly did not book in advance, all of the railpass holder discount tickets were booked so we paid 160 apiece. Good Christ! And so begins the UK spendathon! My sister is like, at this point we might as well get massages at the spa in Bath! Seriously! The French countryside is so pretty. The passport guy at Eurostar asked us who our next president is going to be while holding our passports and we said Kerry and he and the other guy laughed and gave us a thumbs up and then let us through. The Eurostar ticket woman was so nice and patient and looked up a million options for us so we asked for her name and she wrote it down for us and said we should write to the ticket company! It was funny. Clotilde Mathieu, you rock! I think the new name for croque monsieur should be "never gonna poop again." I ate an Egg McMuffin hold the bacon this morning and I'm not afraid to say that it was fabulous. "Dreams the way we planned them, if we work in tandem" -- that line from Wicked that just played is a good one for me and my sister on this trip. Sometimes we'll have a moment of unadulterated loathing but we get over it quickly and move on to figuring out what in the hell we're doing next. So ... Paris! I really did love it. I loved just walking through the streets and looking at the flower boxes in the windows of the buildings while eating or drinking something so decadent and exploring and looking at all of the activity along the river. I loved the whole damn thing. I'm really tired, because Paris is a city that stays up late, so we did, too. This is in no way a physically restful vacation, but I feel rested in my heart. 1:20 pm We're in London at Paddington Train Station. Agh! Harried! We arrived at Waterloo and the next train to Bath was not for SIX HOURS so we sought aid from Steve at the information desk who tried to sell us a £12 rail book that I swear to God was as fat as the fattest dictionary I've ever seen. He told us to take an hour-long tube ride to Paddington which thankfully only ended up being fifteen minutes. Steve was bonkers! Then while rushing to the train we bought £5 bagel sandwiches and my sister fell to her knees surrounded by heavenly light as she ate her first bagel since leaving home. Now we're off to Bath! 2:30 pm We just stopped at Swindon, and I took a picture of the sign. Now the theme song from The Office is running through my head, and I am fascinated by the possibility of running into Martin Freeman on the streets of London like that lucky Andrew who saw him in a bookstore!  10:00 pm  Here are at the Bath Backpackers Hostel sweating like fiends on a lovely cool evening because apparently our room is steamed with ninety-five degree air infused with the boiling heat of the hot spring at the Roman Baths. Holy shit! It's Dingy City but we're both so worn out that we hope we'll just pass out and not notice the sheer and utter filth and nearly unbearable heat that makes it feel like we are standing in the middle of a blacktop pavement at home in the hottest, most humid and breezeless part of the day in the middle of summer while being blasted with stagnant air from the world's hottest heater and trying to sleep that way. There is a cool breeze outside and the window is open. Where is the breeze? WHERE IS THE BREEZE, MINERVA???  Okay, I have to say that this room is foul and I could have a major OCD fit right now but I keep trying to remind myself that we're here for fewer than twelve more hours and then can get the hell out and God only knows that tomorrow night's lodging cannot be worse than this. 
Aside from this 'ell 'ole, Bath overall has been lovely. The spa we read about is not even open, so we kissed the massage dream goodbye. We just walked around a bit at first and heard a little symphony playing songs from South Pacific in a little park. I almost started softshoeing to "Cockeyed Optimist" in the street but restrained myself. Then we just kind of window shopped and went to Starbucks (elysium!) and to our first actual Lush store which was divine and they sprayed soothing refresher on our repugnant tired feet and my sister bought some honey soap and the salesgirls were adorable. We stopped at a chocolate shop and got a little caramel pecan turtle and a big giant chocolate macadamia cookie. 
We then went to the Roman Baths which were super cool and opted not to go to Bath Abbey because there was an admission price and we were starting to go into serious shell-shock at the idea of ten more days of £1= basically $2 and it's a little hard to shake that off but we're trying to be as zen about it as we can.
We ate at a vegetarian restaurant called Demuth's and split a plate of vegetable marinara linguini with an order of nachos and two enormous organic beers and spent £25 which let's face it is like $50. And even though it was delicious that kind of horrifies me on a deep level but I am trying hard to be strong. The Bizarre Bath walking tour was silly and fun.  I really can't believe that we have paid close to $70 for the nastiest, most fly-infested, hottest, dingiest hostel in Bath and possibly the universe and I cannot even believe that I am sleeping here but somehow I am. THE PILLOWCASES HAVE STAINS ON THEM, for the love of God. I guess I am getting my germ phobia under somewhat of control. Can you imagine?? She wants to sleep with the door open but I am like seriously it is all I can handle, the filth, I will not get one wink of sleep if I am worried about some drunk bastard backpacker coming in to steal our stuff or molest me! So the door remains closed and locked. I can only go so far overcoming my phobias in such a short time! Paying about the same or just a little tiny bit more in dollars for a lovely clean private room in Paris where the bathroom was not unisex and in the basement down six flights of stairs but rather in our very own room now seems like a luxury that I will never forget. I know that hotels and hostels are not the same thing and hostels are all a part of the backpacking experience but I guess when I opted to bring a rolling suitcase instead of a backpack that should have told me something. I went down to the basement bathroom earlier and the lights shut off when I was mid-pee and I had to just stop mid-stream because I was afraid something would crawl on me in the pitch darkness and I had to feel around the sticky walls until I found the door. Dear Minerva of the Aquae Sulis, please help me to sleep and NOT CATCH ANYTHING. Forever and ever amen. 
About this time in ...
© Copyright 2004 elb |
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