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Published: January 22nd 2006
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Today was probably one of the best days we've had out here thus far. We went to the Roman Baths and got a tour around the city in one of those red double decker buses that just scream "I'm a tourist!". The tour guide was great becaus he was just had just the right amount of "tour guide humor" without making the jokes overkill and without being dreadfully boring. He showed us all around the city to where the oldest hospital was, where Jane Austen lived, and where Queen Victoria Park was... then he told us that the phrase, "Saved by the Bell" originated when during the plague people would be burried alive because they had fallen into a colma so when they would wake up they would ring a bell that they had with them in the coffin and hope to be saved. I don't know if you already knew that but none of us did and we though it was the coolest thing EVER!
The baths themselves are pretty cool. They give you this dumb little like voice-tour thing which is really annoying because they're not just headphones. Instead it's like an over-sized telephone or walkie talkie that
you listen too but you end up not even caring about because they go into stories and examples about things you don't want to hear when all you really want to know is what everything is and what it was used for. Other than that the architecture is really neat because they have restored a lot of what the original structure would have looked like and the way that it is set up is just pretty nifty itself. I was very impressed by how organized the hallways and what not are that make sure they take you to see every part of the bathouse wthout confusing you or making you refer to a map. You're not allowed to touch the water or anything but when you're walking through there are different pockets of steam that you can feel and it's amazing how hot those springs must get. I never really knew the full story of the baths either so it was really interesting to hear about how sacred they were to the Romans and all the crazy superstitions and beliefs that they associated with tehm.
I really lked the city of Bath in general. Although it does have a
lot of modern shops and stores like any tourist town wood I didn't feel like it was as crowded or dirty as London appeared. A lot of the city still looked very antique and when you walk around you just get a nice feeling of a very quaint and classic town. The weather also couldn't have been more perfect. Although it was a little chilly which we all expected, there were blue skies and the sun was shining so it was a great day for walking around. We took our free time to walk around along the river that goes through which was really cool because there were SWANS! Real, live, free swans just like hanging out and swimming around. The thing I liked most about the city was that it was just the right size for a day of travel. We walked around, shopped a bit, stopped for lunch and a coffee break, and saw the baths, at a pretty relaxed pace. We could stop for pictures whenever we wanted and for as long as we wanted without our tour guide running away from us and I didn't feel like I was racing in a marathon to get through
on time.
I liked that when I left the city I felt satisfied and didn't feel like there was some huge chunk of something we missed and didn't feel like I had to worry about one thing or another the entire time.
When we got back to Oxford we hung out at Logan House for a bit (which is the living unit closer to school and in town near the city centre) then went to a few of the lounges downtown to hang out with our usual group for the rest of the night. The lounges and pubs down here are all nice places to just go and hang out because they don't charge cover but it still gets us all out of hte house. I just wish the next morning I didn't feel like I was waking up in an ashtray because my hair and clothes are always all engulfed in the smell of smoke (which for some reason just won't go away no matter how much you try to air stuff out) Maybe my Oxford souvenir from the trip will end up being LUNG CANCER! Anyway.. all in all it was a really good evening minus
the ride home after the buslines stop. I'm glad that there at LEAST IS a 24 hour bus I just wish it didn't stop so far away from our house. The late-night walk in the cold after a full day's activities isn't the most fun past time in the world.
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Henry (Emily's B-I-L)
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"Saved by the Bell"
Hi. Thought the "saved by the bell" origin was interesting. I did a little more research, and just for the sake of expanding the pool of knowledge, the version below was mentioned often. Thanks. Great blog! Stay warm. Henry "Saved by the Bell" This is boxing slang that came into being in the first half of the 20th century. There is a widespread notion that the phrase is from the 17th/century and that it describes people being saved from being buried alive by using a coffin with a bell attached. The idea being that, if they were buried but later revived, they could ring the bell and be saved from an unpleasant death. The lack of a printed version of the phrase prior to 1954 effectively rules that out. The idea is certainly plausible as the fear of burial alive was and is real. Several prominent people expressed this fear when close to death themselves: "All I desire for my own burial is not to be buried alive". - Lord Chesterfield, 1769. "Have me decently buried, but do not let my body be put into a vault in less than two days after I am dead". - deathbed request of George Washington. "Swear to make them cut me open, so that I won't be buried alive". - Frederic Chopin's last words. Just as real were the devices themselves, several of which were patented in England and the USA. These were known as 'safety coffins' and designs were registered in the 19th century and up to as late as 1955.