Travel Tales: Jane Austen Centre in Bath, UK

L - Statue outside the Jane Austen Centre; R - Me in Bath (standing in front of what my friend & I *thought* was the Royal Mile… it wasn’t, LOL!)

In early November I went on a school outing with some friends (and made a few along the way). We spent the day exploring Stonehenge (a post on that to come soon!) and Bath. The trip was really just organized transportation, so we had free reign to do what we wanted in the hours we were at each location. After visiting Bath Abbey and walking around the beautiful downtown markets, I left my friends to go on a solo adventure to the Jane Austen Centre.

A little bit about the Centre, from their website:

Jane Austen is perhaps the best known and best loved of Bath’s many famous residents and visitors. She paid two long visits here towards the end of the eighteenth century, and from 1801 to 1806 Bath was her home.

The Centre at 40 Gay Street in Bath houses a permanent exhibition which tells the story of Jane’s experience in the city between 1801 and 1806 and the effect that living here had on her and her writing.

Needless to say, I was excited! It felt very special that I was able to visit this beautiful city and experience the Jane Austen Centre in the bicentennial year of Pride & Prejudice! So away I went!

L - Greeter at the Jane Austen Centre; R - Jane Austen family tree.

Upon arriving at the Centre, you are welcomed by the greeter who stands outside. Martin, the greeter, was so into his role! He kindly posed for a photo before I entered the building. Inside, I purchased my ticket, and looked around the gift shop while waiting for my tour to start.

The tour began with a 20 minute live performance given by a woman dressed in period clothing. She told the group of us that had gathered all about Jane Austen’s life, her writings, and the time she spent in Bath. I found it very interesting, as I hadn’t know a lot about her life (although… I may have learned this all in my first year English course and forgotten it). Some things I learned were:

• Jane Austen is commonly understood as living a life similar to the Bennett family, but the fact was that her family was rather well off as part of the landed gentry. However, they did experience periods of financial instability, especially after her father died.
• Her success largely comes from her family’s support - her father encouraged her to read and along with her brothers, aided in her education. Her brother Henry was also a financer and helped put up the funds to publish her books.
• While women’s works were being celebrated at the time that she was publishing, Jane Austen preferred to write her works in anonymity, and her name was not put to her work until after her death. However, she would entertain guests by pulling out Pride & Prejudice and reading bits to them, all the while critiquing the writing along with them, never letting on that she was the author! This was my favourite tidbit I picked up!
• Jane Austen was very close with her sister, Cassandra. They wrote letters to each other daily!
• A sketch done by her sister is the only image we have conclusively of Jane.
• Jane likely had a lover, Tom Lefroy, but his family sent him away, effectively ending their relationship.
• She received one proposal of marriage in her life, from Harris Bigg-Wither. Jane initially accepted, but had a change of heart and the next morning, she declined his proposal.

Learning about her life, she sounded like a fascinating women, and it really made me respect her and her books much more! From the performance, we were led downstairs and allowed to view the permanent exhibit, which shows you what life was like during Jane Austen’s time in Bath. It was an interesting exhibit, with costumes recreated and you could also view some of her letters that have survived the years.

Top: A soldier (I believe) against the backdrop of the Royal Crescent; Top L - About the assembly rooms & entertainment in Bath; Top R - Novels & letters about Bath, such as Persuasion; Bottom L- Recreation of what Jane’s room in Bath might have looked like; Bottom R - Jane Austen adaptations

 

At the end of the exhibit there was a room that had photos from the various adaptations of Jane Austen’s work. It was neat to read letters from the actors, and see the signed photographs!

Oh & to commemorate my trip I bought a beautiful hand stitched bookmark with the most perfect quote for a bookworm:

 

Exploring London

This past Saturday I finally (!) made my way into London to explore and meet up with Faye, a book blogger who I’ve interacted online with for over a year. Faye was generous enough to offer to show me around London, and let me say I’m so glad I took her up on her offer as I had a great time and saw some parts of London I’m sure I wouldn’t have seen on my own.

|Transportation & Meeting Up|

My day started pretty early - around 6:30 AM and it was a foggy, cold and damp morning unfortunately. After some minor problems with the bus, I was able to get on one that would get me to the train station in time. I’ve learned while travelling to just ask people for help, and most often they are very nice and more than helpful. This served me very well on my journey as I was hardly alone both ways, which was good because I’d never navigated the train system in the UK before. I hear during the week it usually takes about 45 minutes direct from Colchester to London but they are doing construction on the lines on the weekends or something and it takes 1.5 hrs, with 2 transfers to a bus and then a train again before ending up at Liverpool Station. I ended up chatting with another University of Essex student, so that at least made the journey go by quickly!

Once I arrived I was easily able to find Faye, in her bright pink coat, and we promptly got on our way. The first thing on our itinerary for the day was the Tower of London!

|Tower of London|

The Tower of London came highly recommended to me from several people, and I was excited to learn that Faye had never been either, so it was a new experience for both of us! We lined up for our tickets in the rain, and then decided to wait a few minutes to join the Yeoman Warder tour. We were quickly led to the chapel on the grounds where we were given a dramatic retelling of the Tower of London’s past by a tall, burly Yeoman Warder, or “Beefeater”. A little bit of history - no one knows exactly why they are nicknamed “Beefeaters”, and the Yeoman are a detachment of the Royal Bodyguard. You aren’t just a tour guide as a Yeoman Warder, as you’ve had to have served in the armed forces with an honourable record for at least 22 years!

From our Yeoman Warder we learned of the imprisonments and executions that occurred at the Tower of London - most famously that of Anne Boleyn, second wife of King Henry VIII who was beheaded on May 19, 1536. Her bones are buried in the chapel we were sitting in, the chapel of St Peter ad Vincula, along with those of Catherine Howard (Henry VIII’s fifth wife), and Jane Grey (The Nine Days’ Queen).

We also heard of the horrifying execution of 70-year-old Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, also executed on the orders of King Henry VIII (god, that man was vengeful!). Apparently back then you could hold a terrifying assortment of jobs while being a drunkard such that of a butcher and executioner. You can probably tell where this is going, and yes, it ain’t pretty. Apparently poor Margaret Pole’s executioner was drunk and did a sloppy job of her beheading and ended up hacking her to death with five blows to her shoulder and neck, finally taking out his butcher knife to do the finale cuts. I’m not sure if that last part was added for effect or not, but it wasn’t needed - the truth is sickening enough and we haven’t even gotten to the part about the Bloody Tower!

After our history lesson we were free to wander, and so we went and saw the Crown Jewels. Pictures weren’t allowed, but let me say they were majestic. It’s hard to get your head around that you are seeing what is probably trillions of dollars of jewels in the form of spectres, crowns, and accessories! I laughed because they kept talking about The Coronation Spoon in the little shows they have going on while you are waiting to get into the various rooms, and I was imagining, I don’t know something like the site of a spoon you would use for tea or like a souvenir spoon for some reason. Well turns out it is more like a gigantic serving spoon that is over 800 years old! Color me surprised. I also got to see footage of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation and was struck by how young she was and also, how well she has aged! 

From there we turned again to a bit of darker side of history, and went to see the infamous “Bloody Tower”. Here we learned of the imprisonment of Sir Walter Ralegh, the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, and after ascending what is probably the smallest staircase in the world (Faye had to calm my claustrophobia a bit!), the probable murders of two young princes on orders of King Richard III. It was a lot to take in, and I definitely want to learn more about the Bloody Tower, as I did feel like the exhibit didn’t give me as much info as it could have.

There was a lot more to see, but we felt we had experienced a good amount in 2 hours and were getting hungry so we stopped for lunch and a chat before tackling the next bit of our itinerary.

|St. James Park|

After lunch we took the Underground or “tube” to St. James Park, aka Buckingham Palace. This was quite neat because it is an iconic site that you see on TV, most recently when Prince William and Duchess Kate kissed on the balcony in front of hundreds of thousands of adoring fans on their wedding day. However, I actually found Buckingham Palace a bit lackluster. It is no longer the monarch’s residence, and is used more just as a symbol of the monarchy. While it is big and has iron gates and guards around it, I just wasn’t in awe as I expected to be. It was cool seeing it though, and I also enjoyed seeing the Queen Victoria memorial/fountain and the Mall or promenade where royal processions always take place.

|Foyles & Dinner|

After a quick walk through St. James Park, we took the tube again, this time to Foyles, the famous London bookstore that has 3 or 4 floors! I looked up its history and it’s quite fascinating! According to Wikipedia, Foyles was once listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's largest bookshop in terms of shelf area (30 miles/50 kilometres) and number of titles on display! It also had some strange business practices in the past due to one of its rather eccentric owners, Christina Foyle (1945). She would fire staff on a whim, refused to install electronic tills or calculators and wouldn’t take orders by phone. However, expensive books could be ordered from as far off as Germany and were sent with a bill without prepayment! What really made the store known for it’s “anachronistic, eccentric and sometimes infuriating business practices” was a 3 part payment system that she instilled where you had to queue to collect an invoice for the book, to pay the invoice, and then finally to collect the book. Apparently sales staff weren’t allowed to handle the cash. Oh, and the books were arranged by publisher versus topic or author!

Thankfully, they have updated the store and their systems and so my experience was not so crazy! At Foyles we met up with another book blogger, Lucy, a friend of Fayes. They managed to convince me to get the UK edition of one of my favorite books of 2011, The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson which was signed!

With books in hand we made our way to Chipotles for a burrito dinner where we spent about 2 hours getting to know each other more, talking about books and laughing so hard our cheeks hurt - it was loads of fun.

|Leicester Square & Oxford Street|

To end off our day of exploring London Faye first took me to Leicester Square, the culture hub of London. It was quite busy as people were going to the theatre, and other events and shopping. We went to the HUGE M&M World which had 4 floors of M&Ms and branded merchandise. Some it was a little weird - I don’t know anyone that is THAT big of a M&M fan, haha. But some of the stuff was cute, but it was also a bit scary as it was really in your face marketing. We also went to some “tack” tourist shops that were really cheesy. I got a really cute mug (amongst some other souvenirs and gifts) that says “Stay Clam and Drink Tea”!. To escape the rain we then found this outlet mall/arcade/coffee place and got some slushies and just hung our for a bit.

Finally, to add a bit of magical touch to the end of the trip we hopped back on the tube and went to Oxford Street, a very “posh” area which was decorated for the holidays. There were big animated Christmas lights shows, sponsored by Marmite, with fairies, Santa, and elves which was really cute. The trees were light up, as were buildings! It was really festive and a great end to my first time in London!

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Vlog from Abroad!: Updates, Mail & an Unboxing

Hi everyone! Sorry I haven’t been blogging much lately, but I plan to have some posts up soon. In the meantime I thought I’d give an update in the form of a vlog. I also got some mail so I talk about that, and do an “unboxing” video of a care package I received from home!

Sorry if it’s a bit choppy - I had to cut it down a bit to fit it on YouTube. Plus, those that know me know I can ramble on and side-track when telling a story, haha!

Arrival & My Room with a View

As we landed in London at Gatwick, I looked out the window at the English countryside and was all “Huh, this kinda seems like home!”. & England sort of does feel like my home so far, but I’ll elaborate on this in another post. But let me just say that I am excited there is so much natural landscapes and wildlife here - I would have really missed that part of Canada!

Upon leaving the plane Hannah and I made our way to the UK Border Security - which was a BIG line up. We were in line with our heavy carry-on bags for about 45 minutes, because it was everyone being screened who didn’t have a UK/European passport - that line was MUCH shorter! I was so tired and hot that I ended up just shuffling my purse along with my foot, LOL. The border security agent was really nice though, and the questioning and stamping of my passport took all of about 3 minutes or so.

Then we made our way to get our luggage - and let me tell you, Gatwick Airport is pretty darn dead on Sundays. The luggage claim floor/hallway literally echoed. Hannah and I were the only ones there and an airport employee was lining up all our luggage for us. We then managed to find the airport shuttle for the University of Essex, and lucky for us, there were 2 spots left for the 3 PM shuttle. I felt bad because two girls who arrived behind us had to wait for the 5 PM one - which was like a 3+ hour wait, on top of the 2 hour drive to campus. But I certainly wasn’t giving up my spot at that point!

We left our bags with Kate, who was overseeing the shuttle to Essex, and rushed to grab some food and clean ourselves up. We were surprised at how little there was in Gatwick Airport (ummm… especially seating areas!), but we did manage to find a grocery store that sold some lovely pre-made salads. I gobbled down a spinach, basil pesto, and pine nut pasta salad and water. We laughed at how we were expecting a McDonalds or other fast food joint, but we were so excited to get some real food! Also - random side note: I loved the bathrooms at Gatwick Airport. They were so posh and were like your own mini-bathroom in a huge stall that was more like a room. Seriously awesome - I should have gotten a picture, haha.

When we finally got on the shuttle, I pretty much started dozing. But that didn’t mean that I didn’t experience in between quick naps the horror of British driving!! It’s like constant merging, with no turning, and swerving in and out of the proper lane. The bus hardly ever stopped, I swear! You think Peterborough or Toronto driving is bad? Come try and learn these rules or just sit in a car while someone drives - while I’m sure the bus driver knew what he was doing, it didn’t make it any less scary I tell ya.

Upon arriving at the University of Essex I was greeted by student ambassadors and myself and my luggage, along with a few other students, was shuffled onto another shuttle waiting to take me across campus to my residence. I signed in, and received my pass code and card (like ones used in hotels) and was escorted to my flat by one of the student ambassadors who, no lie, looked very similar to Daniel Radcliffe!

Once inside, I did have a bit of a cry as all the emotions finally hit me. But I was able to recover after a while and then I got to unpacking and opening up my student essentials kit I had bought with some bedding and kitchen supplies. You can see my room above. Right now it is looking very hospital/jail-ish with the white comforter, blue sheets and white shiny brick walls. I’m hoping to find a tapestry or poster or something to decorate with. But I have a beautiful view of the forest and there is a lake with ducks right outside my building.

Oh, and that top and bottom photo were taken within about 1 hour of each other. Yes, British weather really DOES change at the flip of a coin and then stay gray and gloomy for the rest of the day!