Bizarre Bath

Yesterday my mom and I took the Bizarre Bath tour which meets outside of The Huntsman. Our tour guide arrived in a bright purple jacket and proceeded to explain that Bizarre Bath was not a tour of history and facts, but rather an evening of entertainment. It certainly lived up to its name. Our first stop was across from Sally Lunn's, where he established his credentials by reading the sign ("To prove that we know what we are talking about we will in fact start with a little history: Sally Lunn's House is the oldest house in Bath, built in 1450. Sally Lunn lived in this house in 1680."). Next, he told us about lay lines, blindfolded himself, and walked to the plaza outside Bath Abbey as a blindman. Later we ended up by the river, where he presented Stewart the Stuffed Rabbit, a direct descendant of the rabbit Houdini told his secrets to before he died (yeah, crazy backstory). Then he chained the rabbit up, padlocked him twice, put him in a bag, put dumbells in the bag, and then threw Stewart into the River Avon. Stewart, like Houdini, managed to escape his bag in 10 seconds. The funny thing was, that we all felt so bad for the rabbit, and our guide was like, "Why are you 'ahhhh'ing??? This is a toy! It's a stuffed animal toy!"

Perhaps the scariest trick for me involved my Found Ring, the one that my friend Blair Hall gave to me last year in Latin American History class. Our guide asked if anyone had a ring he could borrow, so I said yes and handed him mine. He was going to do some magic trick with it, so he wrapped it up in tissue paper and tied it to a balloon. He was stepping up onto his crate and tripped and accidentally let the balloon with my ring fly off into the air. Everyone gasped. My heart sank. I know the ring isn't 'mine,' but it is. I've had it for over a year now. I wear it every day-- in Italy, on the cruise, all last semester, in England. Jacob has worn it once, even. I could have cried. He apologized profusely. I tried to be nice, I told him I hadn't even bought it myself, not to worry, it wasn't a big deal. But really, I was torn up inside. I kept hearing Kay's voice telling me that the ring went to whoever needed it most and I hoped that whoever found the ring next, on the ground miles away, would treasure it.

Then he turned to Bath Abbey and said, "We could use a miracle right now, and this is a place of miracles." And then, from around the corner, came Stewart the Rabbit on a little motorized car. And in his paws was a package. And in the package was a ball of wound wool. And after the wool was unwound there was a little leather purse. Our guide had me come up and open the purse and inside was my ring!!!! I have no idea how he did that. I was happy, though, to see my ring and get it safely back on my finger. A little later on in the tour, he made me a balloon animal as compensation for my initial distress.

In other news, I have completed my tutorial paper for tomorrow and I'm down to two papers (I hope!) for ASE!!! Three and a half weeks until summer!