bath&chelsea
well, what a wonderful weekend its been!
first of all, i want to say that as i'm typing this on a sunday afternoon at around 1, i can hear the songs from a church in the background. don't know where its coming from, but i like it... it sounds like a church where all the people sing loudly, i'm thinkin baptist? could be wrong... but its most likely not catholic - its not like a choir, its more like a entire body of the church belting it out!
speaking of churches, we found a catholic church RIGHT around the corner from our house. i didn't get home in time to hit up the 6o'clock mass, but the people who went were home by 645, they said its an express mass. i'm hoping that the one i go to tonight at 7 is just as quick!
so let me back up a little bit here, back to friday.. the trip to bath. everybody in the house except for 2 people (lindsey and michelle) were going on the trip to bath, so we all got up and got to faraday house by 9. 9.20 we were on the road, in the coach bus, it was nice. unfortunately for us tho, there was a lot of traffic on the highway (they call the highways by numbers and letters, we took the A4 and the M4). so we got stuck in traffic and apparently the bus driver had to take some different routes than planned, and we didn't get to bath until 12:30. i guess it wasn't supposed to take that long, but it did, and as a result, we only got to spend about 1 hr and 15 mins on our own exploring the city. even worse was the fact that we had to get lunch in that time also. first let me explain what went down. basically because we were short on time, they drove us around the city of bath, explaining the history and whatnot, so it was impossible to tak pictures of the beautiful parks, and squares and everything. its a lovely town, i tried to get some pictures, but it looks alot like london except everything looks the same. everything is made out of the same kind of rock, i think it was called bath limestone, so every house is the same tan color. the city is set in the hills, which is really pretty. there's a cathedral, there's all sorts of nice looking buildings, there's nice parks and stuff, its a shame that we couldn't explore it all. the city is famous, however for the roman baths. the natural hot spring in the city is the only one of its kind in all of england. so when the romans were in england 2,000 years ago, they built some baths (basically swimming pools) that were fed with hot water.. and by some miracle, they are still there today. all the original pipe work and stuff is still working (not pipes, but the way water gets from one place to another), and the water is still being pumped out into the pools. so back to our free time - me, courtney, andrew, and max went to a pub called coeur de lion (heart of the lion in french) for lunch. i had the fish and chips and peas, which was extremely good. everyone else got sandwiches. the place was pretty interesting. it was no bigger than our living room at home (or maybe 20 feet by 20 feet). and we suspect (this is only an educated guess) we suspect that everyone that works there is homosexual. not that there's anything wrong with that. but we started to get that vibe when we saw pictures of the workers dressed up in drag, and they had certain manerisms that made us think that they may have all been gay. is this blog material? i'm sorry, i shouldn't have said anything. anyways, here's a shot of the inside of the pub.
so at 1:55 we had to meet at the roman bath museum, which wass where we spent the rest of the day. the museum is situated right on top of the original bath, so that the bath is the main draw of the museum. this was kind of weird, but it was an amazing thing to see. the water was green, and bubling (not because it was boiling, but because of the gasses coming up). and you could walk around, and look at all the artifacts and stuff from the romans, and actually walk right next to the baths, and look down into them, which was amazing. the fact that the same exact bath existed 2,000 years ago was incredible. so i went picture crazy there, but here's some good ones - a panorama of the bath itself. there's steam coming off of it because the water was so hot.
and here's a shot of me, i couldn't resist, and i think it came out great. i rested the camera ontop of some ancient roman bricks that made a perfect ledge. i think thats why the shot came out so good.
and then here's one of the better shots of the neighborhood i took from the bus. you can kind of see how every building is made out of the same stuff.
so after we went to the museum we grabbed some quick eats at a fake patisserie ( i had pain au chocolate that didnt compare to france), and then it was time to go back. we ended up spending more time in the bus than at bath! so when you look at it that way, and you think about how much of the city we didn't get to see, it wasn't really a good trip. alot of time in the bus in exchange for not-so-much time in the city. but it was definitely nice to get out of london and see more of the country. even riding in the bus was nice because we got to see the countryside.
saturday was of course, the football game. chelsea v portsmith (they dont say "versus" they say "v"). the entire experience was incredible! i want to back to another game so badly! the day started off with a talk from some local football experts, who gave us tips and tricks, as well as explaining the way the league works. the way the league works is really well-planned. there are different teers of the football association, and at the end of the year, the top 3 teams in each level move up, and the bottom 3 teams move down a teer. that way the games are always interesting, even the ones with the bad teams. and last year, chelsea won it all, they were the premiere league (top teer) champions! the first time thats happened since 1955. and this year it looks like they're going to repeat. just like any team in the states, the fans are really hardcore... except they dont really dress up for games, or paint their face, or have banners, or signs, or anything. they wear they're regular clothes. maybe they have a scarf that says "chelsea," or maybe a hat. very few people had jerseys on, mostly kids. people didn't even wear the team color (which was blue). everybody was dressed in their regular clothes, which are dark by nature, so the stands just look dark. so that made it difficult to tell which group of fans were rooting for which team. they only way to tell was by the chants. the chants were unreal. i soon found out that we were right next to the little sliver of portsmith fans. i am a chelsea fan. i became a chelsea fan when i got my ticket, which was amung the chelsea fans. it was a home game for chelsea. the chelsea stadium is humingus. its outdoors, but the stands are all covered. it holds 40,000 people, and every game, there are 40,000 people there. there's 4 different sections to get in, the east and west stands, one other set of stands opposite of us, and then 'the shed' (just like the movie). we were in the shed, which was right behind one of the goals. first half chelsea was shooting at our end, and the next half they were defending it. unfortunately they didn't score at all in the first half, but did in the second half (twice). portsmith is really bad, actually, they're in danger of going down a teer at the end of the year. the field was all mud, so that sucked, but it was interesting. before the game i had a hotdog for 3 pounds. it was huge - at least a foot, maybe longer. i also bought a program for 3 pounds, and actually, i got a t shirt for 3 pounds also. everything was 3 pounds. thats not true for everything, just the things i got. alot of stuff was madd expensive. so i got to the stadium early and went in to my seat, figuring i would walk around the stadium before the game, but to my surprise, you couldnt walk around the stadium, just my section (the shed), and you couldnt even go to the chelsea mega store which was in part of the stadium.. so i had to just sit and wait for the game to start... and eat my hot dog. before the game it reminded me of an su game, everybody was warming up to some piped in music. the one thing that was a bit fishy was that you couldnt drink beer in the stands, only in the concourse area. so before the game it was like a pub in the stadium, with everyone drinking and watching footbal that they had on tvs out beneath the stands. when the game started everyone was in their seats. not a single empty seat anywhere. our view of the field was great, i suspect every view was great. we were behind the goal, and up far enough where we could see everything. and one of the best parts was the chanting between our section and the portsmith people. especially since the game was tied at 0 until the 60th minute, both teams thought they had a chance. the chanting was great, i got lots of video of it. very vulgar. very funny. some of the chants were familiar, like the "give me a c" chant where they spell chelsea, some were stupid, like the "chelsea, chelsea, chelsea, chelsea, chelsea" chant, and some were great, like "champions, stand up!" chant. i couldn't understand most of the chants because of the accents, and because everyone was yelling them, but some were to familiar tunes - like the graduation song. one of the chants sounded like the graduation song. it was hilarious. but most of the chants during the game were jsut different ways of saying chelsea. so they were easy to learn. the fans were really roudy, too, alot of cursing and vulgar hand motions between sections. but i never really felt unsafe. it was like any game in the states, i just went with the flow. the game itself was really good. and as soon as chelsea got the first goal, the chanting started to get really negative towards portsmith. i got some great video of that. expect a chelsea video montage on the su site. chelsea ended up winning 2-0, and it was an excellent time. it was just great to be emersed in the culture like that. it was a huge learning experience, and a memory i'll always have. here's some pics:
the stadium from the street
the view from our seats:
(it was really sunny, a beautiful day for a game, but it made it hard to take pictures. either the sky was totally washed out, or it wasn't and the stadium was really dark). i tried to work with it tho.
here's another view from our seats:
and here's a view of a corner kick from our seats:
and here's a cool shot of the sign entering a certain gate at the stadium. by the way, the stadium was called: stamford bridge.
and don't go thinking that its the chelsea lions or something. its jsut chelsea. the chelsea football club, or CFC. they don't have a nickname.
came home from the game and caught the tail end of the su game - very dissappointing. today i'm heading to faraday for a group project, and then church, and i have alot of work to do. i can't believe wednesday is ash wednesday already! im going to give up biting my nails for lent, in case you wanted to know. tuesday is also pancake day locally, have no idea what thats all about, but it should be a good time. we'lll see if there's any festivals or anything, i think there are. anyways i gotta run, i need to start doing work! sorry if this is kind of messed up to read, but i'm pressed for time!
cheers!
first of all, i want to say that as i'm typing this on a sunday afternoon at around 1, i can hear the songs from a church in the background. don't know where its coming from, but i like it... it sounds like a church where all the people sing loudly, i'm thinkin baptist? could be wrong... but its most likely not catholic - its not like a choir, its more like a entire body of the church belting it out!
speaking of churches, we found a catholic church RIGHT around the corner from our house. i didn't get home in time to hit up the 6o'clock mass, but the people who went were home by 645, they said its an express mass. i'm hoping that the one i go to tonight at 7 is just as quick!
so let me back up a little bit here, back to friday.. the trip to bath. everybody in the house except for 2 people (lindsey and michelle) were going on the trip to bath, so we all got up and got to faraday house by 9. 9.20 we were on the road, in the coach bus, it was nice. unfortunately for us tho, there was a lot of traffic on the highway (they call the highways by numbers and letters, we took the A4 and the M4). so we got stuck in traffic and apparently the bus driver had to take some different routes than planned, and we didn't get to bath until 12:30. i guess it wasn't supposed to take that long, but it did, and as a result, we only got to spend about 1 hr and 15 mins on our own exploring the city. even worse was the fact that we had to get lunch in that time also. first let me explain what went down. basically because we were short on time, they drove us around the city of bath, explaining the history and whatnot, so it was impossible to tak pictures of the beautiful parks, and squares and everything. its a lovely town, i tried to get some pictures, but it looks alot like london except everything looks the same. everything is made out of the same kind of rock, i think it was called bath limestone, so every house is the same tan color. the city is set in the hills, which is really pretty. there's a cathedral, there's all sorts of nice looking buildings, there's nice parks and stuff, its a shame that we couldn't explore it all. the city is famous, however for the roman baths. the natural hot spring in the city is the only one of its kind in all of england. so when the romans were in england 2,000 years ago, they built some baths (basically swimming pools) that were fed with hot water.. and by some miracle, they are still there today. all the original pipe work and stuff is still working (not pipes, but the way water gets from one place to another), and the water is still being pumped out into the pools. so back to our free time - me, courtney, andrew, and max went to a pub called coeur de lion (heart of the lion in french) for lunch. i had the fish and chips and peas, which was extremely good. everyone else got sandwiches. the place was pretty interesting. it was no bigger than our living room at home (or maybe 20 feet by 20 feet). and we suspect (this is only an educated guess) we suspect that everyone that works there is homosexual. not that there's anything wrong with that. but we started to get that vibe when we saw pictures of the workers dressed up in drag, and they had certain manerisms that made us think that they may have all been gay. is this blog material? i'm sorry, i shouldn't have said anything. anyways, here's a shot of the inside of the pub.
so at 1:55 we had to meet at the roman bath museum, which wass where we spent the rest of the day. the museum is situated right on top of the original bath, so that the bath is the main draw of the museum. this was kind of weird, but it was an amazing thing to see. the water was green, and bubling (not because it was boiling, but because of the gasses coming up). and you could walk around, and look at all the artifacts and stuff from the romans, and actually walk right next to the baths, and look down into them, which was amazing. the fact that the same exact bath existed 2,000 years ago was incredible. so i went picture crazy there, but here's some good ones - a panorama of the bath itself. there's steam coming off of it because the water was so hot.
and here's a shot of me, i couldn't resist, and i think it came out great. i rested the camera ontop of some ancient roman bricks that made a perfect ledge. i think thats why the shot came out so good.
and then here's one of the better shots of the neighborhood i took from the bus. you can kind of see how every building is made out of the same stuff.
so after we went to the museum we grabbed some quick eats at a fake patisserie ( i had pain au chocolate that didnt compare to france), and then it was time to go back. we ended up spending more time in the bus than at bath! so when you look at it that way, and you think about how much of the city we didn't get to see, it wasn't really a good trip. alot of time in the bus in exchange for not-so-much time in the city. but it was definitely nice to get out of london and see more of the country. even riding in the bus was nice because we got to see the countryside.
saturday was of course, the football game. chelsea v portsmith (they dont say "versus" they say "v"). the entire experience was incredible! i want to back to another game so badly! the day started off with a talk from some local football experts, who gave us tips and tricks, as well as explaining the way the league works. the way the league works is really well-planned. there are different teers of the football association, and at the end of the year, the top 3 teams in each level move up, and the bottom 3 teams move down a teer. that way the games are always interesting, even the ones with the bad teams. and last year, chelsea won it all, they were the premiere league (top teer) champions! the first time thats happened since 1955. and this year it looks like they're going to repeat. just like any team in the states, the fans are really hardcore... except they dont really dress up for games, or paint their face, or have banners, or signs, or anything. they wear they're regular clothes. maybe they have a scarf that says "chelsea," or maybe a hat. very few people had jerseys on, mostly kids. people didn't even wear the team color (which was blue). everybody was dressed in their regular clothes, which are dark by nature, so the stands just look dark. so that made it difficult to tell which group of fans were rooting for which team. they only way to tell was by the chants. the chants were unreal. i soon found out that we were right next to the little sliver of portsmith fans. i am a chelsea fan. i became a chelsea fan when i got my ticket, which was amung the chelsea fans. it was a home game for chelsea. the chelsea stadium is humingus. its outdoors, but the stands are all covered. it holds 40,000 people, and every game, there are 40,000 people there. there's 4 different sections to get in, the east and west stands, one other set of stands opposite of us, and then 'the shed' (just like the movie). we were in the shed, which was right behind one of the goals. first half chelsea was shooting at our end, and the next half they were defending it. unfortunately they didn't score at all in the first half, but did in the second half (twice). portsmith is really bad, actually, they're in danger of going down a teer at the end of the year. the field was all mud, so that sucked, but it was interesting. before the game i had a hotdog for 3 pounds. it was huge - at least a foot, maybe longer. i also bought a program for 3 pounds, and actually, i got a t shirt for 3 pounds also. everything was 3 pounds. thats not true for everything, just the things i got. alot of stuff was madd expensive. so i got to the stadium early and went in to my seat, figuring i would walk around the stadium before the game, but to my surprise, you couldnt walk around the stadium, just my section (the shed), and you couldnt even go to the chelsea mega store which was in part of the stadium.. so i had to just sit and wait for the game to start... and eat my hot dog. before the game it reminded me of an su game, everybody was warming up to some piped in music. the one thing that was a bit fishy was that you couldnt drink beer in the stands, only in the concourse area. so before the game it was like a pub in the stadium, with everyone drinking and watching footbal that they had on tvs out beneath the stands. when the game started everyone was in their seats. not a single empty seat anywhere. our view of the field was great, i suspect every view was great. we were behind the goal, and up far enough where we could see everything. and one of the best parts was the chanting between our section and the portsmith people. especially since the game was tied at 0 until the 60th minute, both teams thought they had a chance. the chanting was great, i got lots of video of it. very vulgar. very funny. some of the chants were familiar, like the "give me a c" chant where they spell chelsea, some were stupid, like the "chelsea, chelsea, chelsea, chelsea, chelsea" chant, and some were great, like "champions, stand up!" chant. i couldn't understand most of the chants because of the accents, and because everyone was yelling them, but some were to familiar tunes - like the graduation song. one of the chants sounded like the graduation song. it was hilarious. but most of the chants during the game were jsut different ways of saying chelsea. so they were easy to learn. the fans were really roudy, too, alot of cursing and vulgar hand motions between sections. but i never really felt unsafe. it was like any game in the states, i just went with the flow. the game itself was really good. and as soon as chelsea got the first goal, the chanting started to get really negative towards portsmith. i got some great video of that. expect a chelsea video montage on the su site. chelsea ended up winning 2-0, and it was an excellent time. it was just great to be emersed in the culture like that. it was a huge learning experience, and a memory i'll always have. here's some pics:
the stadium from the street
the view from our seats:
(it was really sunny, a beautiful day for a game, but it made it hard to take pictures. either the sky was totally washed out, or it wasn't and the stadium was really dark). i tried to work with it tho.
here's another view from our seats:
and here's a view of a corner kick from our seats:
and here's a cool shot of the sign entering a certain gate at the stadium. by the way, the stadium was called: stamford bridge.
and don't go thinking that its the chelsea lions or something. its jsut chelsea. the chelsea football club, or CFC. they don't have a nickname.
came home from the game and caught the tail end of the su game - very dissappointing. today i'm heading to faraday for a group project, and then church, and i have alot of work to do. i can't believe wednesday is ash wednesday already! im going to give up biting my nails for lent, in case you wanted to know. tuesday is also pancake day locally, have no idea what thats all about, but it should be a good time. we'lll see if there's any festivals or anything, i think there are. anyways i gotta run, i need to start doing work! sorry if this is kind of messed up to read, but i'm pressed for time!
cheers!
posted by Jamie at 5:08 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home