York. Haworth. YORK!

The City of York and York Minster

This weekend was my trip to York. Now, I don't think that I would have chosen to go to York all by myself, but USC organizes some trips for students studying in the UK. The other bonus to going, besides hanging out with some really fun Trojans, is that everything is paid for. And let's face it... I'm all about the free.

On Friday I left from King's Cross Station (I have not yet taken the obligatory Platform 9 3/4 photo, but it is coming) and rode the train to York. I have never really used the railways as a viable means of travel, so seat protocol was a bit new to me, and I must have sat down in someone else's seat and gotten up about 5 times before I found a seat that was unclaimed. Also after having done this, I ended up in the one car that did not list all of the stops and had a couple of panicky moments when I thought I had gotten on the wrong train (even though I had read the sign, sometimes the doubt sets in, you know what I mean?). Got to York in just over two hours, hassle-free, and made my way from the station to our Bed and Breakfast. 

I was the first person there. So I put my stuff down and promptly tromped out into the brisk wind to explore a bit of the city. As our tour guide informed us the next day, towns are places without cathedrals, this is regardless of size or population, unless of course you get special dispensation from the Queen. York, however, is a city because it has a cathedral, in this case York Minster. It was the only cathedral spared during the sacking of Catholic churches during the Protestant reformation. And has the oldest stained glass (from the medieval period) and the best kept statues and treasures. It is a beautiful building, towering above everything else, that can be seen for miles. 

York Minster

York has been an important city since Roman times. There is a long wall surrounding York with only four gates. It has withstood the Viking and Norman takeovers, and still surrounds the city, unbroken, today. I entered and explored the mostly closed-down city (everything closes at 5) through Micklegate. After a bit of wandering I decided that I was cold and hungry and nothing but food was open anyway, so I went back to the B&B where I met some other USC kids and waited until dinner. (I re-met Lauren, who has actually been to my apartment several times in LA and didn't know she was in the UK. I also, embarrassingly, could not remember her name immediately. Bad Katie, bad.) Some shenanigans at dinner, then bed.

The Wall around York

The next morning we got up for a 'traditional' English breakfast. Egg, sausage, bacon, beans, and tomatoes. While yummy, it seemed as though many things were straight out of the can. I will have try a real traditional English Breakfast before I leave. It was very nice to wake up to someone else making you tea though. I am finding that I enjoy tea far more than I did back in the US. After breakfast we all piled into a tour bus and headed out to explore Yorkshire. 

Our tour guide was Mike, Mike-on-the-mike, as he called himself (and rather bitter that some DJ in New Jersey has 'stolen' his name). He was a portly, slightly balding Yorkshireman in his early 60's. He was very proud of any and everything that had come from, passed through, or ever mentioned York or Yorkshire. He was a very enthusiastic, slightly rambling, and sporadically informative. I think he was flustered by 18 American college students honestly. 

Now on this tour Lauren and I made the rather unfortunate decision to sit in the front of the bus, to get the best views, of course. This was just a bit close to Mike, who when very enthusiastically extolling the barely visible moors or random Otley songs (or anything really) would send rather large globules of spit in our direction. We didn't want to tell him or put our hands up to ward off the shower because he was genuinely sweet, he just didn't know that what he was saying was not really that interesting or really didn't pertain to what was going on. Meant well though.

Statue of Thomas Chippendale

We were rather relieved to get off the bus in Otley. What is Otley you ask? You know. I still don't really know. I know that Thomas Chippendale, the famous furniture maker, was born there. But nothing of his actually survives, so we saw a bank building showing where his house used to be and a slightly graffitied statue in a random primary schoolyard. But other than that, not a whole lot. Lauren was also confused as to why this was on the tour. 

Lauren showing her emotions

We got back on the bus, Mike having miraculously shifted positions so the spittle was no longer pointed in our direction, and we headed to Haworth. Haworth is the home of the Bronte's. Yes, those Bronte's. Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, you get the picture. Haworth is a very small village on a rather steep hill. Very picturesque. 

We visited the Bronte Parsonage Museum, which is a Museum made out of the original parsonage that the Bronte sisters and delinquent brother grew up in. The house had been put back to the way that it would have been when they lived there, furniture all in it's place. There was also the addition of costumes from the most recent BBC Production of Wuthering Heights... for some reason. Several of the paintings had been removed and replaced with modern photographs of the moors. Those two things stick out to me as very anachronistic additions to the house, but the rooms were cool to see. 

Haworth, just below the Bronte Parsonage

In the Bronte Parsonage Museum there are no pictures allowed, so there is no way that I can truly convey to you how utterly creepy the house was. I didn't quite realize how creepy until I got into the sitting room and read, "...this chaise is where she did most of her sitting, and where she died." Ah! Then walking into Charlotte's bedroom, they have some of her old clothes, her tiny shoes, her tiny gloves, her hair mementos... wait... what? Oh look, there is some of Emily's hair. It kind of made my skin crawl. Just seeing their handwriting, personal mementos and drawings made everything so much more real in a ghostly creepy sort of way. 

While fascinating, I was glad to get back out into the sunshine. I explored the pasture behind the parsonage, and the graveyard just up the hill from the Church. (So, fun story, there are 'officially' around 7,000 bodies buried in the graveyard, but scientists estimate there are about 40,000 bodies buried there. People just pushed them further down and buried on top of old graves. This became a problem during the Bronte's time because some strange, black, sludge decay kept seeping up through the Church floors... gross.) I loved that it felt like fall, the mists coming in from down the valley, small patches of color amongst the green, crisp wind in my face.

Yorkshire Countryside

We were starving though, so we stopped by a small local cafe to grab some food. I got some pumpkin and parsnip soup and a local Red Dragon ale and felt very full and happy. Then we had to dash back to the bus, and we drove to Saltaire, a city built around a mill that was the most fair to its workers at the time. We went into the old factory converted into an art museum/antique gift shop. There was not a lot of time, and I personally think that exploring the only planned city I have seen in Britain would have been more interesting... but alas, we glanced around and got back on the bus back to York.

Me, walking on the Wall, exploring York

This was a lot more fun. We went around exploring the city, seeing the sites. Again almost everything was closed, so it was mostly wandering. We saw the ruins in Museum Park. Got some roasted chestnuts. Climbed up Clifford's Tower and watched some of the people roll down the hill (I would have followed, but as everyone landed in some sort of smelly mud/dog shit, I decided that I would forgo that adventure), and we ended up in a pub, watching football (soccer) and rugby (and watching the people watching football and rugby), ordered some beers and throughly enjoyed the beginning of our evening.  

We then had a great dinner at a mediocre (great for Britain) Italian restaurant. This reinforced my theory that good company makes any meal better. As does wine. So as we walked, and some of us weaved/stumbled, to O'Neil's for some more drinks, we were all in very high spirits. 

As we walked out of O'Neil's we were still in very high spirits. Just as we get out into the street we hear Prith say, "Oh SHIT!" What on earth could be happening? We just left the bar. Unbenownst to us, Prith had a Blackberry and was keeping tabs on the USC v. Notre Dame game. Most of us had given up hope of finding the game much earlier in the day, so it was absolutely shocking and exhilarating to know the score. We came in at 34-27 with 10 seconds left in the 4th, Notre Dame on the 4 yard line, about to score. We went APE SHIT. 

For those that don't know, you can't go to USC and not care about college football. And you can't go to USC and not care about big rivalry games like Notre Dame. And you can absolutely not stand to lose to such schools that you have beaten for the previous 8 years (take THAT!). 

So we froze, all of us, in the middle of the sidewalk in York, packed like sardines around Prith as he frantically hit the refresh button. At 2nd and goal we couldn't take it anymore. Meg called someone in the states and was giving us the verbal play by play until both confirmed that we had in fact beaten the Irish again. 

Pandemonium. Cheers. Yelling. And together we all started singing the Fight Song, mimicking the band, and of course chanting "Beat the Beavers" for next weeks game. It was fantastic. (I must also add that one very inebriated boy kept yelling "Fuck the Beavers" all the way home, which was completely obnoxious, and to the 15 year-old boy inside us all, completely hilarious.) I love being a Trojan.

The next day we got up, packed up, had another English breakfast, and headed out. As people were coming from different places in the UK, some people left early. Lauren had to go back to Edinburgh to write a paper (who does school work when they are studying abroad?) so we went to the National Rail Museum and explored the old trains and train memoribilia before she had to say goodbye. 

Museum Railway Archives, look what I found!

Then I went back into the museum and wandered some more. Then I went to pick up my bag from the B&B before they closed the doors for the day, met up with some of the other USC people hanging around, and we went to the Minster to climb the Tower. 

While some people saved our spot in line we went to go get some lunch (they said it was at the Hog's Head and I was excited because of the Harry Potter thing... but alas it was Hog something-else) which was delicious. I got a turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sandwich. Yi was a bit braver and got a Yorkshire pudding, which was also delicious, he let me have a bite. Yorkshire pudding is not actually pudding, its a pastry... I felt a little cheated. 

Then we got back in line and headed up the Tower. There are 275 very narrow, very windy, very steep stairs. I took my backpack with me. It was awesome. As we go up we realize that both Prith and Jeremy were scared of heights. This resulted in me laughing and them freaking out most of the way up. Once we got to the top, we were caged in, so they felt much better (which I didn't really understand because in the small, windy staircase its not like you can see down) and we had fun looking around from so high up. 

Me, backpack and all, at the top of the Tower

Before heading down though, they started freaking out even more. So to calm them down we sang all the way down. We sang Mulan and Backstreet Boys. Which to my extreme surprise a) they knew the words to, b) did not completely annoy everyone in the staircase, and c) totally worked. Also, the people waiting in line to go up were laughing when we came out and someone told me I had a nice singing voice (I laughed out loud). It was very fun though.

Then we split ways, they went to the train museum and I wandered the city. I found some very yummy food stalls and got some snacks for the train ride. We all met up at the train station and got on our respective trains, most of us heading back to London. We sat as close as possible on the ride back and had some very good conversations before people started conking out. I even managed to get most of my reading done. Then back onto the over-crowded bus to Mile End (where us QMers got separated) because the Tube was down for weekend construction and back to lovely Queen Mary.

York would not have been nearly as fun and entertaining with out the other USC people that were there. I had a blast with everyone. So thank you Sharkster for organizing. I apologize for the lengthiness of this post. If you made it this far congratulations and thank you!

Cheers!