Bath Day 1

July 6, 8:20 pm

We walk into our hostel room and there are two very hairy guys sleeping in the lower bunks. A little uncomfortable, but we drop off our stuff and take off for the Roman Bath Museum. It starts to rain… this ws the beginning of a pattern we had yet to comprehend. It goes like this. Rain. Enter museum. Rain stops. Exit Museum. Rain pours down so hard the store clerks' eyes pop. Enter restaurant. Sit down. Rain stops. Wait a loooong time for the bill. Rain sprinkles then turns into massive downpour the minute we actually get the bill and stand to leave. Went to Sainsbury's Local. Bought Brolly.

So anyway, while at the Roman Bath Museum there was no fire… no fine firemen to snap pictures of either. Sigh. On the way home we stopped in to California Kitchen (whose menu was definitely more British than Californian) for dessert. Mel ordered carrot cake which came drizzled in this strange looking hot pink strawberry sauce. I ordered French Onion soup. Yeah, I know… nice dessert. Went back to the hostel and read until 10:30.

Today we bought a 10 Pound bus tour and went around and then half way around again to the Fashion Museum, which used to be called the costume museum. I swear it was a heck of a lot larger when I was there ten years ago. We didn't get to see the Assembly Rooms, as there was a dance class in there. It sounded like Riverdance above us as we walked through the museum. We came out and saw that there were tons of people in period costume wandering about.

We stopped at a Thai place for lunch and then off to the Jane Austen Center which was seriously more an homage to all the Jane Austen movies than to the actual books. A bit disappointing. Much preferred the Jane Austen Museum in Chawton. We did have tea in the Regency Tea Rooms upstairs… where all the combinations were named after characters. The Bath bun we ate was quite nice.

We then went looking for a chemist but found Sainsbury's instead… then while wandering a bit more (now safely ensconced under my trusty new brolly [and trying not to hum Singing in the Rain]), we saw a sign for a movie theater. Bingo!

Female Agents was a good WWII movie, most of which was in French. As Mel put it – It's The Dirty Dozen… but with girls. A group of French resistance fighters are recruited and sent in to rescue a geologist with valuable information of the D-Day plans.

Now I think it's time for digestives… and Soduku!