Y2-18: Weeks 36, 37 & 38, day trips and leaving Bath!

Here I come with the last post from my second year in Bath, time certainly flies!

Monday the 30^th of May was a bank holiday meaning that everything was closed. I didn’t do much to be fair; slept in, ran some errands and did some tidying up in the house. I also went to a free screening of ‘Me Before You’ with Amélie and Esther, since the Slackers Club was offering one. The film was fine; not the best, but for a love story it was alright considering I don’t particularly enjoy romance films. Also, it was Canary Islands’ Day so I got to show a bit of pride in my home with some nice pictures of the landscape. I was really missing the sun!

The whole week was pretty chill. Having just started the holidays, I focused on getting a few things done now that I had time: updating the blog, figuring out storage space for my belongings over next year and how to take it there, starting to pack… On Tuesday Vidushi invited us over to her house for Indian food because her aunt and grandma had come to visit, so despite the rain we made our way to Combe Down and enjoyed a good Indian dinner. Begoña still struggled with the spice though… 

Joel left the house on Wednesday morning, forgetting some stuff behind that we had to partly mail to him and also get someone to pick it up for him, and in the evening we went to ODEON to watch ‘Alice Through The Looking Glass’. I really loved the film, the costumes, make-up and scenery were absolutely gorgeous and, although the plot was nothing special, I really loved the film.

On Thursday I was going on a day trip to Stonehenge and Lacock with Cristina so I met with her to get the Lion Tours’ bus. It was so much easier and less time-consuming to get the tour rather than attempt to make our way on our own… The bus was late, but it finally arrived and we were only seven passengers: a Malaysian girl studying in Birmingham, an American couple, a Canadian couple and us two. The day was sunny and lovely, albeit somewhat windy, but I really enjoyed it. I finally visited Stonehenge after wanting to go since I was a little child. To be honest, I thought the stones would be more impressive but the thing that impressed me the most was the location: it was in the middle of nowhere, literally. I found the interpretation centre very helpful to understand the site and all the other interesting facts about it and its surroundings. 

Then we made our way to Lacock which is a small town very popular for film locations because it looks just like it did three centuries ago at least. It was super-tiny but it has been home to ‘Downton Abbey’ episodes, BBC telecoms and the Harry Potter films. In fact, we saw the Potter house, Slughorn’s house and also the Abbey that doubled as Hogwarts in the first film. It was really quirky and cute. We also got to see one of the Wiltshire horses and some lovely views of the English countryside. Once back in Bath we were starving so we had dinner in Pizza Express before parting because I was going for drinks at The Westgate with the French lectrices and a couple other second year students. It was lovely to see them before leaving, everybody was talking about their plans for summer and their Year Abroads and the lectrices were great offering to help if we needed. As a bonus, we got to listen to them speaking English for a change!

On Friday I treated myself to a pancake brunch because, why not? And in the evening I met with Cristina and Rebecca to go and watch BUST’s production of ‘Hamlet’. It was the first Shakespeare play that I have actually watched and it was hard to follow because of the Old English, but I really enjoyed it. They did a fantastic job after only a week of rehearsals and I was really glad I got tickets! 

On the Saturday Amélie’s parents came over because she was leaving the following morning so they had to load all her stuff in the car and I spent the day packing my bag for my Amsterdam trip and also met with Cristina in the evening to plan another day trip, this time to Wells and Glastonbury, once I came back from the Netherlands. If you want to know more about my adventures in Amsterdam and Utrecht, click here: http://gathering-smithereens.blogspot.com.es/2016/06/june-2016-amsterdam-utrecht.html?m=1

Back from the Netherlands, life got really busy. I spent Thursday and Friday virtually packing all my stuff to have it ready to take to the Storage Centre and, believe me, that is tough work. You cannot imagine how much stuff you can haul in one year, despite having reduced it down over the last months. I managed to pack it all in the end (yippee!). It was only Bego and me in the house by then, which felt really bizarre and even more so because we had both packed everything. Begoña left on Saturday morning and the house was left incredibly empty. It was really strange because I was the last moving in, so I had always seen the house filled with our stuff and now it was the opposite. Plus, living out of a suitcase for a week… sounds familiar? #throwbacktofreshers 

Anyway, the best thing to do was to stay out of the house so on Saturday afternoon I went into town and met with Cristina. We went on the Tower Tour, which I’d done before with Erin but I didn’t mind doing again. The views from the Abbey tower are incredible, even more when you can recognize what you are looking at. Then we headed to the Fashion Museum because there was an exhibition. History through 100 objects or something similar. They had made an exhibition of the changes in fashion from the 1600s up until now using objects and pieces of clothing from the archives. It was amazing! I love fashion exhibitions so I am glad I got round to visiting it, it was great. We also got to try on some puffy dresses ourselves… Right out of a Jane Austen novel I might say… After that we just walked around and had some frozen yogurt before heading back home and just about avoiding the rain. That night I decided to watch ‘Encore’ on my lonesome. Not a bad night.

On Sunday, Cristina and I went to visit Wells and Glastonbury. As it was a Sunday, the bus timetables were a bit more limited, but we managed to visit both and come back in time and fortunately the rainy weather cleared off throughout the day. First we took the bus from Bath to Wells, which takes a good hour and a half, and once there we visited the Cathedral, the Bishops’ Gardens and the Vicars’ Close. I liked the gardens because of all the wells and flowers, but my favourite was the Close. It is one of the only remaining medieval streets in England, and it was a sight! 

Then we took the bus from Wells to Glastonbury and had to get off in the middle of nowhere because the main road was closed off because of the party celebrating the Queen’s birthday. So much love for the royalty. I loved Glastonbury, the vibes of the town were amazing with so many hippie and alternative people; it reminded me of home! Sometimes I miss having people so chill around me, Bath is quite a posh place and it lacks that kind of atmosphere… In Glastonbury we first visited the Abbey ruins. It must’ve been quite a sight before it was demolished. Then we went to the Chalice Well gardens which are literally a hippie commune that runs a garden with healing properties or so they claim. Not amazing. And then we walked up a massive hill to the Tor. The views from the Tor were absolutely breath-taking! There was a map identifying the hills and towns and you can clearly see the inspiration for the Accommodation names on campus: Solsbury, Brendon, Polden…  After than we went back to Glastonbury and used the time left over before the bus back to roam around the shops. I couldn’t help but buy a choker and a pin. My favourite things of the day definitely were Glastonbury town and the views from the Tor. It was worth such a long trip just to see those!

My last week in Bath was really, really busy. On Monday I finished packing and had to run some errands. I then went to my last bootcamp session in which there was only four of us and was run at the University Hall so we were running up and down the lecture hall stairs. It was a lot of fun but really hard work. I will see what I can think of to keep up the exercise next year… And, of course, Game of Thrones before bed. On Tuesday I took some stuff to give to charity and did some shopping in town. I got myself some new matte lipsticks that look amazing (love me a good lipstick!) and then headed up to campus to have lunch with Vidushi who had just started her placement at University. She is very happy with it, so I am glad. After that I had the training session for the June Open Days in which I was working. They briefed us on all the information we needed and then got to meet out team leaders and members. I was allocated the East Car Park Welcome Point so I was right outside the East Building giving Welcome Packs to the prospective students and their families and giving directions. That evening, Beryl and the new tenants came over to have a look and I sorted out how to leave the house on the Saturday.

On Wednesday I woke up early and Jason, the van driver who helped me last year too, came over to help me take my stuff to Stroud to the Storage Centre. It is quite a drive away but he was super nice and also had a new puppy with him that was so cute. We chatted away and he also helped me load the unit at the storage place. I managed to fit everything in only one unit so that was such a great victory! Once back home I did the groceries (well, bought some ready-made meals for the last three days) and cleaned the house. Since it was raining, I decided to stay at home and chill. I did some online language tests for Erasmus and defrosted the freezer (omg water puddles everywhere), and just relaxed and went to bed early since I had to wake up at six to get to work the following day.

My experience working at the Open Days was amazing! I really enjoyed it. Even though I had to get up really early to get to campus on time to set everything up before people started to arrive, and it was really demanding, I had tons of fun! I met a lot of lovely people: Isaure, Barney, Andrew, George… and had a great time helping out on both days. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t help much but we kept on smiling and welcoming everybody to our great University. I loved the fact that we got to talk about our experience and why we love Bath, I felt it was a way of giving back to the community at University. I can’t wait to take part in more Open Days when I go back in fourth year!

Even though I was exhausted after working all day, that didn’t stop me from doing stuff in the evening, making the most of my last two days in Bath. On Thursday I finished cleaning and went over to Vidushi’s house for dinner. We ordered Domino’s and chilled for a bit. And on Friday, after saying good-bye to the campus, I packed the suitcase and sorted the router to hand it back to Virgin on my way to town to meet Vidushi. We went out for a couple celebratory drinks at the happy hour in Turtle Bay.

Forgive my face in this... :P

I left on Saturday morning to come back to Tenerife for the summer. I really wanted to go back home to the sun and sea. Plus, there was not much going on in Bath once the exams finished and pretty much everybody had left, but Bath has become a second home to me over the past two years and it was hard giving it up. It felt unreal to be leaving Bath for over a year, but next year in France and Italy will be blast, I’m sure, and I will be returning to England in 2017. I can’t begin to imagine what it will be like when I have to leave permanently after I finish my degree… But, for now, so long Bath, you’ve been a treat!