A day in York

Thursday, May 22, 2008

We woke up early today to leave Scotland and for the second day in a row I had a terrible soar throat. Don’t worry, I’m doing my best to clear it up with Vitamin C drinks, water, tea, cough drops, and a bit of ibuprofen. Really, it could be much worse, but hopefully I can clear it up soon!

We had plans to travel about 2 hours to York and spend the day there, traveling the second length of our trip back to London later in the day. After my roommates (7 of them!) and I packed up our bags we headed downstairs to meet the group and head to the train station. We were met with a bit of a fright, discovering some compromising situations as a result of a few girls drinking heavily the night before. Minutes after I was informed of the issues, they were resolved and we were able to make our way safely to the station. For those of you praying over our trip, thank you!!! The situation was certainly a blow to our professor though, and I think the combination of her knee injuries (she had surgery recently), a terrible travel agent (several mishaps with lodging/traveling), and this morning’s events has really put her over the top. Perhaps one of the more depressing things about it all is that a few people’s irresponsibility will probably result in the discontinuation of this particular study abroad option. For those of you a bit worried by this paragraph, you know that I am very responsible and make every effort to keep myself and my friends safe; even more-so when in another country. I have made several very good friends on this journey who are more like-minded in those ways, but I am not out with the crowds that stay out super late. So, please do not worry for me too much, but continue to pray for the safety of our group; perhaps the experience will make other students more cautious!

We also hit another road block when we arrived at the train station and Ellie couldn’t find her money. I helped her search through her bags and she talked to information and we tried calling the hostel. Ellie seemed at her wits end and came jogging back to the bag after 15 minutes of frantically running around the station and said “I have one more place to check, but that would be a miracle!” I thought to myself, well, God is entirely capable of those, so why not?! I began to pray silently as she rummaged, and moments later I heard her breath a sigh of relief. I smiled at her and said, “I bet you were praying too, weren’t you?” We smiled and laughed in relief, praising God for our little miracle.

While the first hour ½ of my day was quite dramatic, the rest of the day was actually quite pleasant. I sat on the train listening to a book on tape as the Scottish and British countryside rolled by. The story I was listening to was set in the UK, so it made it come to life a bit more! It’s quite nice to have the bits of downtime to yourself when you are traveling in a big group.. I’m sure you can imagine!

Stepping out at York, we found that the day had warmed up a bit and there was slight breeze in the air. It was beautiful! We checked our luggage for the day and made our way to the city centre by following street signs. Along the way we passed over a river and came into the city of York, which I found so interesting. It was combination of incredibly old architecture, mixed with more modern styles. Popping up from behind a sleek-styled building would be a castle-like tower. The oldest and newest of building nestled comfortably into the city together!

The first place our group went was to the York Minster Cathedral. We bought our tickets and began to tour around, snapping pictures. Soon, a free tour began so we followed that along for about 45 minutes. There are several services that happen there each day and during the middle of our tour, the entire place stopped to a prayer that was said over the loud speaker. I thought that was wonderful! We learned some interesting things about the history of the church and delicateness of making all the stain glassed windows. We also learned that some of the equipment being set up was for a movie that was beginning filming tomorrow, Robinson Caruso, I believe. We eventually broke for lunch and Lindsey braved the Yorkshire pudding, and I tasted a bite which wasn’t too bad. I was happy with my baguette though! Afterwards, we lazily hit a couple shops before returning to the Cathedral to climb the tower. When I purchased the ticket, they asked if I was in good health or claustrophobic. I replied no, but soon found out just why they ask that. It is a single-file line of people going up a small spiral staircase that seems to never end. I forgot how many stairs someone told me it was, but I’m sure there were more than 200! There is a bit of a tease half way up where you walk from one tower to the next across scaffolding on the roof (fenced in, of course). The views from the top were splendid of the city!.. and the long journey up the stairs gave me a deeper appreciate for the architecture for such a tall, old building! The views were much better than any stair-master I know of! ;o)

After this, we went into the market place, where there were several streets, both parallel and intersecting that were very busy with people. The streets were small and unavailable to cars, so they were filled with people. It was fun to be in the middle of a busy city without having to pause and check/double-check/triple check which way the cars are coming from constantly. We found some interesting shops, one being an antique book shop. We even discovered a book called “From Beatrix Potter to Harry Potter,” which I was so tempted to snatch, but my bag is already getting a bit heavy, so I passed. It turns out Joanne had already read it in prep for the trip, but I am unsure if that is where she got the name from. We also stumbled into a sword shop, that had a lot of medieval type armor and replicas of swords from Lord of the Rings, Narnia, etc. We couldn’t, however find the Griffendor Sword, sadly. There was also a younger gentleman set up at one of the intersections with his artwork for sale. As we looked at his drawing and then at our street, we realized that this and several others were inspired from images we were looking at with our own eyes. He was quite talented and working on an interesting piece when we were there.


Once we left the city centre, we did the river walk and then a walk along the city wall, both of which had some gorgeous views. We could only go so far on the city wall, however, because they had closed it for repairs. We relaxed, sitting on the wall for a bit, and then returned to the train station to grab a bite and get on the train.

Once we got back to Kings Cross station, a few of us went to platform 9 ¾ before heading back to the hotel, which is a famous imaginative landmark from the tales of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter. I am now happily in a spacious room again at the Royal National Hotel in London, with only two others. I have spent my evening sipping on raspberry-echinatia tea, dipping in shortbread cookies occasionally, listening to my book, and typing this blog. Just what I needed after a long day traveling and touring York!

I hope you’ll forgive me for not meandering down to the lobby tonight to get on email, but I’d had quite enough of people and am quite enjoying the comfort of my bed. I haven’t made plans for tomorrow, but it is our free day in London. I imagine I might catch a matinée of the theater and we have a 7:30 booking on the London Eye tomorrow. Hopefully, I will have some leisurely time in the morning to post this update.


With love and hugs,

Bethany