Bristol was once a docklands town. It has a pretty strategic river that runs right through the middle of town and that river was used to ship goods out to sea and around the world. I hate to say it, but I was unimpressed by the town. It was a gray day and unusually muggy, so that did not help matters. We did get to ride on the river though. We were sort of taxied from one end of town to the next on a little boat. The river was polluted, with bits of garbage floating among the dirtied swans. It was less than romantic to say the least. The most interesting part of my day was visiting the old S.S. England, a former passenger ship that has been lovingly restored to its former glory and renovated into an award-winning museum.

We were like little kids running around the ship, looking through the old births of the first and third class passengers. I could not imagine sailing from England to Australia for 3-4 months in those cramped tiny quarters. It would go insane. it was interesting to see how these people lived and how it was like a tiny floating city: complete with livestock and enough food to feed an army. I could hardly believe that cows used to make the voyage too. I guess they had to get their dairy from somewhere, right.

I went up to the top of the deck and couldn't help but feel like Leo DiCaprio in Titanic, that stupid song stuck in my head, as I looked out over the river and wondered what it must have been like to make the journey to the unknown. The journals of some of the passengers said that they didn't know if they would ever see their friends or families again. That is a really sad prospect that would probably hold me back from traveling if I was alive in those hard times. It made me think how easy our modes of traveling have become. I mean, I went to Australia in 22 hours. It took those people 3 months. I went to England in 7 hours. It took those people 2 weeks. It's just crazy to see how fast technology changes and to see how far we have come.