Hey Mister, what's a Minster?

Day number two – or full day number one is complete – and it was another long one. You can tell that we are farther north, because as I write this at 10:00 p.m. GMT, it is kind of dusky outside and makes me feel like it is about 8:30 at home. We got up around 7:30 a.m. as Emily wrote in the previous blog and bummed around reading yesterday’s paper and watching TV until 8:30 or so. We went down for our first attempt at a “Traditional English Breakfast”. It consisted of toast with jam, orange juice, tea, a fried egg, bacon (closer to what we call ham, but fried like bacon), sausage, baked beans, and stewed tomatoes. I ate my fill of toast, fried egg, and bacon, ate most of the sausage, a few of the baked beans, but couldn’t do more than taste the tomatoes. They were the same as the ones that my Granny Kirby used to make with rice – I didn’t like it them in Live Oak served 4 blocks from my house with a sweet southern accent, and I can tell you that them being served an ocean away with a lovely Yorkshire accent didn’t create a fondness either. Tomorrow, we’ve ordered scrambled eggs, toast, and bacon. Unlike Bill Bryson, we didn’t want to waste the tomatoes every morning if we weren’t going to eat them!

After breakfast, we spent an absolutely wonderful morning at York Minster (read Cathedral). As you can see from some of the previous pictures – it is HUGE! I don’t know if I can really express the different feelings that went through me while we wandered through the different parts of the Minster. In some ways, the National Cathedral in Washington, DC is more impressive – i.e. more ornate with more sculpture and frills around the edges. But just standing on the stone floor and realizing that it has been here – being walked on – since 1220 – it is really beyond words. I had several favorite parts. One was the Chapter House – where the government of York used to meet, as did Parliament in the days of Edward II (he’s the son of Edward I, better known as Edward the Longshanks – yes the one from Braveheart). Edward the Longshanks actually originally convened the Parliament in the Chapter House while fighting the Scots (wondered if Mel Gibson was there) – so we were walking down the same hallway as Edward Longshanks – again beyond words. We also were amazed at all the tombs of Archbishops littered around the place. President Wilson being buried in the National Cathedral seems a bit overshadowed by the Archbishop of York who served in the 14^th Century! (I’m including our favorite picture of one of the Archbishops whose statue is posed rather seductively for a man of the cloth J). My other favorite part was the Tower itself. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it up the 275 narrow, winding stairs to the top, but we did. The view was really awe inspiring – as was the thought of the men and boys who hiked these stairs on a daily basis in the Middle Ages. Afterwards we went the other direction and viewed the Undercroft and Crypts. There were hundreds of treasures of the church from chalices of the present-day to a horn that was made from elephant tusk brought to England in pre-Norman times (that’s before 1066). But all of that seems like modern history compared with the Roman excavations found underneath the foundations in 1969 when they were repairing the blunders the builders had made in their hasty 250 year building project in the 13^th and 14^th centuries. Apparently the FIRST cathedral – the Norman one from the 11^th Century was built on top of a portion of the Roman headquarters in York and the present-day Cathedral was built over the Norman one.

Afterwards, we had über-cheap sandwiches from Mr. £andwich, located on The Shambles. Our total bill was £3.55 for two sandwiches and two drinks. I had #28 – colored cheddar, mayonnaise, cucumbers, and walnuts, whilst (nice English word) Emily had the #8 – the Waldorf salad sandwich. It was a really good lunch – especially for the price (see picture of Emily eating her £andwich). We enjoyed eating it in the square watching people and pigeons. After lunch, we wandered and shopped for a while and then had tea at the Bullivant’s Tea Room. Emily’s six year wait for fresh clotted cream and scones is now over. I enjoyed mine as well. We then rested at the B&B for a couple of hours before heading back to the Minster for Evensong. The Boy’s and Men’s Choirs were singing and it was beautiful to listen to. We sat in the choir for the service, which in and of itself was amazing. It was also funny to watch one of the boys (who had a solo) having to hide his mouth during the prayers to keep from showing his laughter at something his friend next to him was whispering.

For dinner, we ate at the Three-legged Mare. It wasn’t quite as “traditional” as the Royal Oak, but it was a good, light dinner nonetheless. Plus we saw some of the men from the choir there and Emily told them how great a service it was. We then explored some more and found St. Mary’s Abbey – or what is left of it after Henry VIII got through with it. We then found our way to Exhibition Square and took the Haunted Walk with our guide Tony (in one of the attached pictures). It was a fascinating walk that included a lot of history with several very spooky stories. It was really nice because it wasn’t about masks and gimmicks but was instead mysterious events and the history around them. He also showed us Whip Ma Whop Ma Gate – the shortest street in York, with the longest name (see picture). Tony claims that if Emily gets drunk in public, there is still a city by-law in existence that would allow me to take her there and whip her publically (hence the name of the street). I’m not sure that I’m willing to try that out – and not due to fear of the police intervention either! There were only eight of us on the walk, including a couple from Australia who are on an 8 ½ week whirlwind tour of Africa, England, Egypt, and America. So our piddly little 28-day jaunt across Britain was put into perspective!

By the end of all that, we were amazed that it was 9:45 p.m. – so clearly our jet-lag has subsided. Tomorrow promises to be another great one, filled with a lot of very different experiences. We have decided that we will both need to buy at least one more sweater or sweatshirt, though, because it is a lot colder here than we expected – and it looks to be even colder in Edinburgh.

Cheers for now!