Morning Market and Roman Baths

Today was one of my lightest days on this trip. Woke up early, refreshed after 5.5 hrs sleep, so I crashed in the afternoon. 😅

After a light breakfast, we went to the Green Park Station market, a kind of combo farmers' and flea and craft market, surrounded by small shops. Did some sketching while Davina and the fam chatted over coffee and tea, and then Simon joined.

Met the baker I sketched. His reaction was, "Am I really that gray in back?" with a laugh. Honestly, if I'd seen his blue blue eyes and bushy beard from the front at the start, I would have sketched his face! Apparently, that's the second time someone has sketched him, the first time being while he was having a smoke in a pub.

While waiting in front of the Roman Baths for our entry time, I sketched a toddler being fascinated by a man playing a sanshin (Okinawan shamisen). As the musician was closing up, I dropped a few coins in his hand and started chatting with him in a mix of Japanese & English. It turns out Takashi started out with €100 in his pocket and is busking his way around the world! He has an interesting Instagram account: @tabito5839. Check it out!

We had 1pm tickets to tour the Roman Baths, which are actually a full story below the streets of modern-day Bath. We were there for 2.5+ hrs - it was FASCINATING. Great audio guides, projected film re-creations, signage, and pathway through. 10 out of 10 would go again.

It started raining lightly while we were there, so we reconvened under an overhang once outside again. A&E went off to figure out Monday's visit to Stonehenge, and Joe & I headed to a Vodafone shop to figure out why we weren't getting internet access despite having purchased unlimited data. The clerk figured it was the heavy use happening at the time: with 2 universities starting up with attendant parents and siblings in town to settle the new students in, as well as a big rugby game in town, along with the Jane Austen 250th birthday festival, she figured the system might be overwhelmed. Joe has his doubts about that explanation, but at least it doesn't appear to be operator (aka me) error.

After that, the lack of sleep was catching up with me, so we headed back to our place to catch some zzzzzs before meeting up with Simon & Davina for dinner.

Good thing we did too! We went to an Indian place, and were the penultimate party to leave the restaurant. Yummy yummy food: chicken korma and lamb something with coconut rice and mushroom rice. Both D&S had worked for the UK State Dept, so they each have a broad international background. It was a FASCINATING evening. Laid out plans for the rest of our time in Bath, and headed out past 11pm. It was so chilly on the way back, I was grateful for my fleece!

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