The Roman Baths in Bath

A cleansing bath for the first Sunday in the New Year, perhaps?  Ed tried to talk his friend into jumping in ("Tried to persuade a friend to jump in by offering to buy him all his drinks the next weekend.  Didn't work.")  Ah, the life of a traveling college student.

The Roman Baths at Bath do look really amazing.  It's ALWAYS tempting to want to jump into baths/pools/fountains at many famous and historical places where you know  it was commonplace to do so in the past.  I think of the fountains at Peterhof Palace outside St. Petersburg, Russia; the Neptune Pool at Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California; the Jardín del Estanque in the Alcazar in Sevilla, Spain.

Whatever  your cleansing ritual for the New Year, jump to it!

St. Petersburg, Russia

The thing that surprised me the most when I visited St. Petersburg was the colors of the buildings - all painted pastel with white trim.  Like the pale blue in the church above, but also pale greens, pinks and yellows, and on all types of buildings, not just churches.  It is quite beautiful, actually.

I was lucky enough to be in St. Petersburg during the White Nights, around the time of the summer soltice when the sun does set, but the sky never really gets dark.  St. Petersburg is the most northern city in the world with a population over one million, at about the same latitude as Oslo and Anchorage.

The references to the White Nights I've found on-line talk about six weeks of the White Nights Festival.  I don't remember any sort of festival, but I do remember that we were there on the day of the actual summer solstice.  It seemed the entire city stayed up all night, mostly hanging out by the river, watching the bridges raise to let ships pass through, enjoying fireworks and drinking vodka.  It was pretty wild and wonderful all at the same time.

This postcard comes to me through Postcrossing, but unfortunately the sender neglected to put the reference number on the card so I can't let him know it arrived.  So Ishtvan in St. Petersburg, if you happen to read this, "Thanks for the beautiful card!"