11/7/2014
Last day in Bath. ;( I love this hotel, I love this city,
and I woke up today sad to leave. As Jane Austen put it: “Who can get tired of
Bath?”
For our last breakfast in our hotel, Angel got the Poor
Knights of Windsor, which is French toast with berry compote. I got the Egg
Royale again, as well as 3 heaping bowls of blueberries and 2 bowls of yogurt
with vanilla bean honey.
We bought the Historic Scotland pass last night, which
allows you entry into 78 attractions throughout Scotland for one low price, in
anticipation of our trip to Edinburgh next week. It’s usually 29 pounds/person
for the 3 day pass (You have 5 days to use it off), but they have a Winter
Special, so each person is 23.20/person instead. Yay! The only problem is that
the Palace of Holyroodhouse is not included because it’s part of the Royal
Trust (Queen Elizabeth’s trust, I guess?) and I had wanted to visit it. Oh well
:T
Our hotel has free printing, which is why I wanted to take
advantage of the Historic Scotland offer last night. Our morning was pretty
empty in terms of activities, as our train to Birmingham was at 11:36am. So,
all I had to do was email the hotel reception and they printed the passes for
me. Nice!
We left the hotel around 10:30am because the normally 10
minute walk to the train station would take a lot more time with our heavy
luggage. We had to take out the carry-ons at this point, and so we’re both
toting around seriously heavy backpacks, a carry-on and a large suitcase each. And
it was sprinkling. People were looking at us as if we were crazy.
Yeah, I wonder that too.
We got to Bath Spa station with plenty of time to spare—11:10am,
which gave us 26 minutes to get to the platform. The station has elevators and
free bathrooms, which is godsend.
BUT. The train was delayed because of rain and congestion
earlier on in the day. The rain turned steadily heavier—pouring—as the minutes wore on. The trains arriving before our
train were delayed, as was ours. Delayed til 11:44am! That might not sound like
much, but we had to catch the connecting train that leaves Bristol Temple Meads
at 12pm. What was supposed to be 12 minutes to connect was rapidly turning into
6…5…4 minutes to connect. Yikes!
Angel went to go ask a train station worker what would
happen if we missed the connecting train. While she was away, another worker
walked by me, so I posed the same question. A train (not ours) was pulling into
the station as we talked. The worker pointed to the train and said it’s going
to Bristol Temple and we should just hop on this train so we could get more
time to connect. I told her that another worker had told us we couldn’t get on
any other train but the one we reserved for (when we first arrived at the
station, he told us we could only take the train we booked on. If we wanted to
take another train, we would be charged more). She shook her head and said just
explain to the ticket checker that we’d be late to connect if we didn’t get on
the earliest train now. Hunh? Okkk… I guess sometimes you just gotta trust
other people’s advice. I looked around frantically for Angel as people started
exiting this train, my heart pumping madly that we’d miss this train.
Thankfully, I saw her cute little face just in time and shouted to her to get
on this train pronto. We jumped on the train with a few seconds to spare and
stood the whole way to Bristol so that we could be the first to exit (the
journey’s 11 minutes).
Bristol Temple Meads has elevators and very clear signs of
which platform to go to, so the connection was very smooth. When we first got
on the train, we were very surprised that people were standing along the
corridors with their luggage. Turns out, this train was way, way, waaaaay
overbooked. Our carriage was completely full with people standing in the
aisles. As we went down the carriage, looking for our reserved seats, we found
that the seats were already taken by 2 women. I sheepishly explained that we
had reserved these seats and they were surprised that anyone bothered to
reserve seats. I guess it’s not common in the UK to reserve seats? They
apologized and got out of the seats, which I felt bad about, because the
journey’s 1.5 hours. Imagine standing on a train for 1.5 hours. Not fun.
Especially when we’d just sprinted—with our luggage—across a whole train
station to catch the train.
When we arrived in Birmingham New Street station, it was
freakin’ pouring. The station’s
undergoing a major remodel, so the elevators weren’t working and there was only
1 escalator to the exit—for 3 trains that just arrived, full of people. We
waited 5 minutes to get onto the stupid escalator. There wasn’t even stairs to
alleviate the foot traffic! People were getting drenched as a good part of the
waiting occurred under the open skies.
Birmingham New Street station is a huge train station, yet
the WC costs 50 pence. WTF. It’s a major hub. Birmingham city is the
second-most populous city in the UK, after London. At one point in time, it was
a very prosperous city, with the average income higher than London’s. But the
city council was concerned with how rapidly Birmingham was expanding, so they
sought to curb growth. Well, they curbed a bit too much—kinda like the Fed.
Birmingham went into decline, and it’s only in recent years that Birmingham has
turned around again.
People from the countryside make it a weekend trip to come
to Birmingham and shop, so there’s a lot of hotels concentrated in the city
centre. A lot of people come here for their stag and hen parties—or in US
terms, bachelor and bachelorette parties.
There’s a lot of upscale shopping malls in the city centre,
where we’re staying. The hotel was a very straightforward 2-minute walk from
the train station, though a bitch in rain (and with luggage) as it’s all
uphill. But once we checked in…aaaaaah. The room’s clean and spacious, and most
importantly, warm. It was so comfy I didn’t want to leave.
But Baby made me >.<
She had mapped out a few fabric stores and the Birmingham
Rag Market, which only occurs certain days of the week. Today is the only day
we’d be able to catch it during our stay here, so we had to go.
The Rag Market is a huge indoors market with booths selling
everything from CDs to kitchen stuff to shoes to fabrics. Random, hunh? If
you’re into really flashy fashion (like diamonds and glitter on everything), then the Rag Market is
right up your alley. Angel bought a few fabrics that she really, really liked.
Before, we’d been vowing to each other that we wouldn’t buy anything else, as
our luggage can’t handle it. Oops.
Next to the Rag Market is another indoors market, the
Birmingham Market. There’s butchers selling raw meat next to gadget shops and
fabric booths. Even more random! One particular fabric booth had these
beautiful damask fabrics and we’re seriously considering buying them.
We traipsed to the other fabric places on Angel’s list, but
found that they were way more expensive than London. Plus, there was not
anything we particularly liked, so had to traipse back in the cold. Thank God
the rain had let up. A rainbow even appeared!
There’s Marks & Spencer, Primark, Tesco Express all
within a 2 minute walk from our hotel. Love the location! The Bullring and The
Mailbox are also close by, which are gigantic shopping centers.
 |
| The Bullring, complete with a bull wearing poppies |
We picked up prawns and mayo to pair with croissants and
cheese for dinner at Tesco. Marks & Spencer’s Christmas displays are up,
and Baby spent quite a while in the store, getting all excited about every
little ornament and cracker.
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