4012
A welcome day off and my wife and I took a day trip to St Albans to look at some Roman ruins and artifacts. Which it seems is what I mainly like to do with my time off. I love the Romans and resent that this city is named after a beheaded Christian, when it should still be called Verulamium and they should knock down the Norman Abbey and rebuild the Roman city with those plundered stones.
The old Roman town, had it survived, would still be visitable as the modern city is built a bit away from it, but most of it has gone and there's just a massive park there instead. There's still some mosaic and a bit of the Roman theatre to look at, but the main attraction is now the museum, which has some impressive finds, mosaics, skellingtons and coins. I like it when you see ancient hammers and saws and think, "But they look almost exactly like the hammers and saws we have now!" Before remembering that the Roman civilization was pretty advanced. Two thousand years isn't all that long in the grand scheme of things. If only they had been strong enough to crush the Christians and barbarians we could all still be Romans now. I'd look great in a toga. Damn you St Alban. I wonder if he'd have minded having his head cut off so much if he'd realised the town would one day bear his name. I'd be prepared to be martyred if you could guarantee me that London will be renamed Richardherrington. I guess you could always pretend it was going to be and then go back on it once I was headless.
I enjoyed my time in the new non-Roman town though, and the winding alleys and roads and historic buildings. We ate lunch in a Thai restaurant that is now situated in a medieval building full of beams and with a massive old style brick fireplace. I liked the fusion of Thai statues and oak, although the food was a bit disappointing and our romantic lunch rather derailed by the arrival of about fifty schoolkids who rolled in once we'd just sat down and ordered. I guess the restaurant has some deal with the local six form, but I envied these youngsters both their youth and the fact that they got such a cool school dinner. I remembered that pretty much every lunchtime of the last few years at school I ate a hot dog and a cone of chips which were sold from an open window at the back of the school canteen. I would have been too unadventurous to try something this exotic. But I was the worse off for it, both in terms of health and experience.
I wish I was back in the sixth form now. In Ancient Rome. That would be my ideal scenario. If the Universe is infinite then I am, somewhere.
