Where's the village, then?

I woke up at quarter of seven. That is really, really early for me. I showered and made scrambled eggs- those took a long long time, our hobs are not high quality. I then met up with Vanessa and got on a zebra bus. Hilary showed up too, which was cool. We slept on the bus for an hour until we got to a rest stop, where I had extra chocolate hot chocolate and a double chocolate muffin.

I see the judgment in your eyes. Stop it, it was darn delicious!

We got off the M4 another hour later, and the driver was following the GPS system's directions. It said "turn left and end at your destination." The bus turns left, and there is a dirt path and a school. We stop for a minute while the driver (Gerry with a G, he's a Gerald) stares perplexedly at our surroundings.

He then drives the bus down the dirt path. Obviously the logical choice. After driving down the dirt path for five minutes, we pass a biker. Gerry stops the bus and leans his head out and yells, "Where's the village, then??"

The biker gives us directions, which include turning around. So we roll backwards down the hill a bit to a littler offshot of our dirt road to turn around. We then overtake the biker and follow behind him for a few minutes until he angrily pulls off to the side to let us pass, flipping us off. He was very friendly and logical, obviously it makes sense to make the bus follow behind the biker.

Finally we get to a parking area, and get out and start walking down this little road... and into the cutest village ever! They told us Castle Combe is supposedly the most beautiful village in England, but it was seriously way more adorable than I'd anticipated, plus the rain cleared up and the sun came out a bit for when we got there. It's a historical site, so even the new buildings have to be styled exactly the same as the other cottages and use the same stones and everything, it's so cool. Vanessa and I almost got hit by a car when we were looking at a gate, which apparently opens automatically. That was fun, and unexpected in such a cute old cottagey village.

From there we found our way to Bath, where we walked through the central part of the city (we saw Putleny Bridge or something along those lines, which was a bridge built with shops on both sides, and the Abbey, and the Baths, and the Crescent, and some museums and the big shopping street).

We walked around the Abbey (tombstone of the Abbey: "Manley Power") and then grabbed some very yummy pasties and went to the Jane Austen Centre, and took photos with the model of Jane Austen out front, and spent a long time in the bookshop and successfully avoided purchasing anything, and then went and did a tour of the Roman Baths. There was a guy in a toga that was making "incantations" or something along those lines to Soulis, due to the hail that was coming down. He was making fun of this kid named Jed's scarf while Jed took a picture of me and Vanessa with the toga dude, it was funny. We had some of the spa water to drink, it was warm but otherwise good (I think it was legitimately flowing to the Pump Room restaurant from whatever its original source was, which is cool).

My flatmates decorated our flat and were making dumplings, since it's the Chinese New Year tomorrow. And apparently, on New Year's Eve, you make dumplings.