How
to Survive the Bath Trip
Ah, the Bath trip.
A staple in every Ithaca College student’s London experience. However, this trip is not for the faint of
heart. Let it be known before you
dedicate yourself, and £85, that this trip will test you. It will test what you thought you knew about
history, what you thought you knew about your new roommates, and what you
thought you knew about yourself. …But
mostly it will test how long you can sit on a bus without going crazy. If any of you are wondering, “Should I go”, I
hope this post adds some clarity to your decision (I’ll let you decide in what
way).
Step 1: Signing Up
One of the hardest things for college students to do
apparently, is to sign up for things on time.
It doesn’t matter that there is a dirty great big obvious sign stuck on
a post in the middle of the London Center lobby, nor does it matter than this
sign does not move for an entire week.
More likely than not, you will forget to sign up and you will have to
suffer through the influx of Snapchats of people snoring on the bus. Not only that, but you will have to dutifully
like all the poorly filtered images of the Wells Cathedral on Instagram as you
eat cereal in your PJs. And to top it
off, you will try your hardest, but you will fail to ignore the ever so punny Facebook
posts saying “This rocks” as all your friends stand in front of
Stonehenge. SIGN UP FOR THE TRIP ON
TIME.
Step 2: The Bus
You will be expected to be on the bus in front of the
London Center by 7 am. Not bad, except
for the fact that for most of us that means waking up around 6:30 am and that was no fun. It was around that time that I started to
envy my roommate still sleeping in our flat.
Bring snacks for this essentially giant road trip and please, for the
love of god, DO NOT bring a salami sandwich that makes the whole bus smell like
a deli. I’m looking at you Seat 27. Other than that, try to sleep as much as
possible, pee at every pit stop, and remember, you paid to sit on this bus.
Pro
Tip: Bring a backpack instead of carry-on luggage. Your bus driver will thank you.
Step 3: Avebury, Glastonbury Abbey, Wells Cathedral
Now the fun stuff.
I’m going to graze over this part of the trip partly because its beyond
words, partly because I want you to experience it yourself, and partly because
it’s all blurred together. I will tell
you this: Avebury is where you’ll get the best pictures of your friends
standing dramatically on a hill.
Glastonbury Abbey is where you will get to write fun comments in the
visitors’ book like “Jesus would have loved this place” and where a man wearing
old clothing will take you through an old church to realize that England is
old. Wells Cathedral, in my case at
least, is where you’ll realize that the rule for photographs (aka: you have to
pay to take them) is a lie and you should take as many photos as you can. Trust me, you don’t want to spend £2 to find
out everyone’s taking pictures for free.
Step 4: BATH! OMG WE FINALLY GOT TO BATH!!!!!!!
Did I say this was a Bath trip? Oh silly me, by Bath I meant that you will be
in Bath for about 18 hours and 12 of those hours will be spent passed out in a
hostel trying to recover from waking up at 6:30 am, spending half the day on a
bus, and the other half looking at things too old to comprehend. If you’re still up passed 9 pm, you’re made
of stronger stuff. When you arrive you
will be given free time during which many student try to do a pub crawl. To put that into perspective and to give you
a little fun fact, Bath has more pubs per square mile than London (or so I’ve
been told).
Get excited everyone, your hostel has free
breakfast! …It consists of cereal,
toast, and fruit. I usually hate cereal,
but seeing as it free and I’m cheap I ate about three bowls of Frosted
Flakes. After this, it’s time to pack up
once again and head to the Roman Baths! This was probably one of the most
amazing “museums” I’ve ever been in and you really just have to go to find out
why. Also, since you’re there and since
you just spent three hours walking around, you will have to drink some of the bath water and you will realize why they say it tastes like
boiled pigeon feathers. #WorthIt
After the Roman Baths, you can choose to go out on
your own or take a walk around bath.
DON’T GO ON THE WALK, DON’T DO IT!
Your legs will be dead and you’ll have missed out on awesome things like
the Jane Austin museum. To be honest the
“museum” (aka: a house they kept looking really old) wasn’t so exciting. The exciting part came at the end where you
could dress up in Regency era clothing, write with a feather and ink, and drink
proper tea and biscuits. But the REALLY
fun part comes when you almost miss the bus and have to sprint down the cobble
stone streets of Bath.
Step 5: Stonehenge
An hour on the now smelly bus and we’re at
Stonehenge. People will tell you a lot
of things about Stonehenge. They will
tell you, you have to stand far away from it.
False. You can’t touch it but I wouldn’t say you’re fair. They will tell you, you have to walk to get
from the gift shop to the stones.
False. Take the free shuttle that
comes with your student pass and wave at all you friends walking on the side of
the road as you pass by. Finally they
will tell you that there’s not much to do after about the first 5 minutes. Bullsh*t.
They obviously weren’t trying hard enough to come up with the best
touristy photos ever. Luckily, I
succeeded.
Step 6: Go on this trip no matter how poorly I’ve
described it, no matter how long you’re stuck on a bus, and no matter how many
times you wish your feet would stop hurting.
I’m so glad I went on this trip.
