York! The Herald Angels Sing

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If there is ever a time to be homesick while studying abroad, I'm pretty sure the holiday season is a very legitimate time. I had never celebrated Thanksgiving without my family, so I was expecting dinner with Lily's study abroad program to feel quite awkward. Fortunately, I was wrong; I actually had a really good time and was very thankful that I was able to celebrate Thanksgiving with some of my closest friends in England.

Dickinson College, where Lily goes to school, has a huge connection with UEA, and they rotate their own professors to teach here in Norwich. Because of this affiliation, each year, around 50 students from Dickinson alone study abroad at UEA. One of the visiting professors this year teaches in the environmental science program, and he and his family hosted Thanksgiving dinner for the Dickinson science students and their guests. There were about 20 students in total, plus the professor and his family, all crowded into one house. It was great!

All of us basically knew one another through lectures and labs, so we were already comfortable being ourselves. The atmosphere was really homey and cozy, and the quaint English home had a really welcoming ambiance, perfect for a Thanksgiving meal. There were also a few Brits, as well as my friend, Rachel, from Australia, and someone from Scotland, so it was fun to introduce them to a very American tradition. The food was amazing, conversation was great, and we all agreed that every country should have Thanksgiving. I think my favorite part of the night was just being around the professor and his family and feeling like a part of their home. It felt nice to be in a home setting, surrounded by some of my favorite people that I've met while in England. So, I was thankful that night for having the opportunity to have Thanksgiving, despite being far away from America.

This past weekend, Ellyn and I traveled to York to visit Patty, who is studying at York University for the semester (we met in London during IFSA-Butler's Halloween weekend, to refresh your memory). York, one of England's most historically-rich cities, is also famous for its numerous Christmas markets. When Patty told me this bit of trivia, I imagined some outside stands selling peppermints, small ornaments, and gingerbread cookies. Wow, was that the underestimation of the year. The largest Christmas market is located on York's well-known Parliament Street, right in the middle of the city, and the smaller ones have different themes (St. Nicholas' Victorian Fayre, Medieval Market, Children's Fayre, International Christmas Fayre, etc) and are held in rotation starting in late November in St. Sampson's Square and Coppergate, as well as at nearby historic landmarks like Guildhall and St. William's College.

On the first day, we spent part of the morning touring The Gardens, in which are located the ruins of St. Mary's Abbey. There was a very thick, very eerie fog that whispered over the river and enveloped the ancient ruins in a ghostly embrace, lending the atmosphere a mysterious aura. Walking around the beautiful landscape, it was easy to forget that beyond the fog was a bustling city center and that the year was indeed 2008. We left the ruins and walked further into the city center to find that the fog had relentlessly snaked its way throughout all of York, not just surrounding The Gardens. This was a bit disconcerting for Ellyn and me since, as travelers, we are used to being able to look into the distance for a tall landmark of some sort to orient ourselves. The fog's presence became a game of walk-and-guess-what-you'll-find-around-the-corner, and this lasted throughout the day until dusk fell. It was almost like York was a play in which the fog was the curtain, and each historic landmark was a character that couldn't be revealed until due time.

Patty, Ellyn, and I spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon weaving our way up and down countless stalls that displayed everything from handmade puppets to artsy glass wine-stoppers, Yorkshire sausages to hundreds of flavors of fudge, wooden duck caricatures to endless trays of unique jewelry from around the world. My favorite stand was one selling Monkey Apple fruit decorations. Apparently, Monkey Apples were traditionally used for medicinal purposes - curing stomach pains, repelling jigger fleas when rubbed on the soles of the feet, and also as an emetic when the fruit is unripe. The fruit is collected from the Monkey Apple tree in Africa, and artists sun-dry, hand-craft, and paint them to be used as table decorations (think big dish centerpiece piled with colorfully-designed ornaments). Some of them were carved in a way so that a little tea-light candle could fit inside.

Another highlight of the market for me was trying hot-roasted chestnuts, which I thought was just a myth from the Christmas song...I didn't think people actually did that in real life. To be honest, chestnuts didn't make a very good first impression on me - they were a lot more trouble than they were worth and patience isn't exactly my virtue - but I am glad to know that chestnuts are not just a song and now I can say that I have had proper roasted chestnuts...at a gigantic Christmas market in England, no less.

After the Fayres, Patty led Ellyn and me on a tour of York's historic streets. The most famous of all was called Little Shambles, which is a perfect justification for the "quaint English city" stereotype (I know, I say this for basically every city in England that I have visited...but for real this time). Every corner featured some sort of tea house decked with lacy curtains and baked goods displayed in the windows, every other shop was a fudge shop oozing chocolaty aromas, any shop not a fudge shop sold various arts and crafts from England, the streets were paved with cobblestone, and overhead hung wrought-iron signs pointing the way to even more tea houses and fudge shops.

We walked by The Minster, which was enshrouded with fogginess, so we decided to save that tour for the next day, since a huge part of the experience is to climb the tower to see all of York from its highest point. The three of us made our way back to the University area where we had a late lunch at a nearby pub. I had my first plate of Toad in the Hole, a very British meal that Caroline (my host mother in Peterborough) had told me to try some time. It is a very large plate featuring a Yorkshire pudding (not really pudding the way Americans deem pudding - it's more like pancake batter that is baked so that it is crispy on the outside and softer on the inside) in the shape of a large square bowl, and nestled in the "hole" is a heaping pile of mashed potatoes/gravy and peas with three large sausages placed on top. I'm not sure why they call it a toad because nothing about my plate looked like a toad was peering out from the so-called hole (thankfully). It was huge, and it was pretty delicious - the kind of comfort food I like when I'm really hungry - but the plate was just a bit too much for me after a while. I think those darn chestnuts ruined my meal because they were deceivingly filling despite having taken an hour for me to finish one small packet, since nuts are high in protein and take a long time to digest.

Ellyn and I then hit up the shopping center (the modern center with things other than just fudge and tea). After successfully blowing quite a few pounds on clothes and accessories, we decided to find a fudge shop to treat ourselves further. The fudge elves in the shop were really amused by Ellyn and me and let us try all of the 25-or-so flavors to help us decide. I bought a gigantic slice of Mocha-Choca Latte, which I am currently still enjoying while I write to you.

That night, we had dinner at the same pub as for lunch (because it's a really convenient walk) and then the three of us headed back to the city center for drinks at a place called The Evil Eye. Waiting at the bar would have been really annoying if not for the exciting flairing skills of the bartenders. The Evil Eye is famous for its unique cocktails, so reading the drinks menu was quite fun. There was a girl next to us who was a regular and had tried basically all of the cocktails, so she was able to give really good advice. I got a Brazilian Monk, which looked really innocent in its ice-cream/whipped cream chocolaty goodness, but it definitely had some zest to it.

The next morning, we woke up to bright sunshine, a complete 180 in weather relative to the previous day. The city looked quite different without the wispy trails of fog everywhere, and it was a treat to be able to see buildings and monuments in the distance as we walked. After about 45 minutes of waiting in line at Bettys Tea House (it's apparently a really famous part of the city that is a must-do when visiting York), we had a very long, leisurely brunch. Bettys sounds really quaint and homey, but don't let its cute name fool you. It is a three-story building with floor-to-ceiling windows, plush carpeting, and countless crystal chandeliers twinkling above the bustle of rolling trays of mouth-watering cakes, pastries, teas, and coffee, as well as decadent plates of drool-worthy food. I'm all about the presentation of my meals, and Bettys definitely did not disappoint. My appetizer was a simple order of various kinds of toast with coffee. It would have been sufficient to plop the toast onto a plate and give me a little packet of butter. Not at Bettys. I was presented with a three-tiered stand, each tier featuring a different piece of triangle toast arranged in a delicate manner, including fancy porcelain dishes of butter and homemade strawberry jam. So completely English. We all ordered omelets and took our time enjoying the really classy brunch.

We walked by the main markets again while making our way towards the Minster, where we bought tickets for the complete tour of York Minster's main area, the tower, and the undercroft, treasury, and crypt. The Minster is an enormous Gothic cathedral (the largest in Northern Europe!), dubbed a minster due to its Saxon heritage. The word Minster comes from the Latin Monastarium, meaning Place of Learning. Like many other Christian buildings, it is built in the shape of a cross and faces East, towards Jerusalem. The interior is just as impressive as its towering exterior. The stained-glass windows are excruciatingly beautiful, each depicting a historical scene. Every figure or design carved into the pillars, walls, or ceiling seems even more intricate than the previous one. The atmosphere in York Minster was a lot more open than the one found in St. Vitus's Cathedral in Prague, and I found myself enjoying the brightness of the open space. St. Vitus's, in comparison, was definitely just as beautiful in its own way, but it seemed very dark and closed, and trying to take in all of the beautiful artwork was overwhelming in that type of setting, which I didn't realize was what I disliked about St. Vitus's until I toured the Minster.

We climbed the 275 stone steps of the tower to reach the highest view of York. It's a good thing I have been climbing a lot of monuments (namely King Arthur's Peak) because climbing the Minster tower was a piece of cake. The tower was a bit of a tease in the fact that it kept us in suspense throughout the climb; we couldn't really see how far we had gone except through a few small slivers, which I suppose could graciously be called windows, scattered throughout the stonework at various points. Halfway up, we were able to cross an outside walkway to the other part of the tower, which was already pretty high up and gave us a sneak preview of what we were about to experience. The rest of the steps were very narrow, and the compact, spiral stairway made me a bit dizzy after a while. However, the view once we reached the top was amazing, and best of all: no fog - just the happy sunshine as York's spotlight. I wished that the tower wasn't encumbered by the heavy metal mesh that wrapped around the entire area, but I suppose safety first is always good.

We made our way back down and continued further down into the undercroft, which included the crypt and treasury. The first building to grace the site on which the present Minster currently stands were military headquarters during Roman occupation. Its ruins, as well as ancient artifacts and artwork, are on display underneath the Minster today. Constantine the Great (whose statue is prominently displayed right outside the Minster) was proclaimed as Emperor in 306AD. This event occurred close to where his bronze statue stands outside the South Transept. Constantine introduced Christianity to the Roman Empire and was baptized on his deathbed in 337. More stone buildings are thought to have existed in the area before the present Minster was first commissioned in 1220.

We did a more thorough tour of the main area of the Minster and then hit up the Minster shop before heading back out. By the time we finished with the Minster, it was already getting dark and, because it was a Sunday, all of the main touristy sites were closing, including The Wall and Clifford's Tower, two things we wanted to see. We opted instead to walk through another market on the other side of town, as well as Debenham's, a big department store that's like an English version of Macy's back home. Everything was really Christmasy and cheerful, which was enjoyable, but because there wasn't snow, I found myself lacking in complete Christmas spirit. Christmas is not Christmas to me without fluffy white snow everywhere.

So that was my last weekend trip in England! I have two weeks left of school (two weeks!!). It has gone so unbelievably fast; I cannot believe it is already December. You probably won't hear from me for a while because I have a monster checklist of papers and presentations, as well as studying for finals. To celebrate the end of all of this madness, however, I am traveling to Spain and Italy with Jo and Ellyn before heading back home in time for Christmas. Very exciting stuff! But first...off to camp out in the library for the next two weeks!

xx

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Photos

we recruited lots of friends to make turkeys with us
each one had a theme - there were about 15 in total in the end

model students
Bragging rights: our protein purification results in one experiment were used as model data for groups that did not get sufficient purification. We are thankful for our American education.

be thankful for science!
me and my Scientist Turkey

pretty river scene
York style

what lies beyond the fog?
only one way to find out...

my head in the clouds
literally.

14th-century hospitium
according to a sign, this place is "perfect for wedding receptions, hog roasts, and seated dinners"

Comments

[WKF]

I love how, as your time winds down and you become a bit homesick and nostalgic, you go back to your roots: Impatience... "...they were a lot more trouble than they were worth and patience isn't exactly my virtue..." and supreme nerdiness... "...Bragging rights: our protein purification results in one experiment were used as model data for groups that did not get sufficient purification...." It'll be good to have you back!