Yeah yeah yeah, I'm finally getting around to it. I'm going to tell you about my trip to the North. This post is just for Monday, which was the first day of the trip and included Lincoln and York.
Alright, well, we all got up really early (breakfast was at 6:30) and ate breakfast, packed sack lunches, and loaded up the bus. We drove for several hours before arriving at Lincoln. The main two attractions in town were the castle and the cathedral. We went over to the castle first. Part of the castle was converted into a prison at one point, so we went in there. It was kind of creepy. We saw the solitary cells (this was a prison in the time where it was believed that long periods of time without human contact would lead to making better people) and the chapel where they would escort the prisoners into little tiny stalls where they could stand and see only the preacher. It was kind of creepy. But then we went and saw one of the four surviving copies of the Magna Carta and a copy of the Forest Charter, which was really neat. There was also this really cool old tower, Norman or something like that, up on top of this little mound, so we went up there and it was really beautiful.
This is the wall of the castle (they wouldn't let us walk on it because it was so busy) and you can see the cathedral towers in the background.
Then we wandered over to the Cathedral and peeked into it. Unfortunately, they were going to make us pay to tour the cathedral, so we gave up on that idea and just looked at the part that we could see. The stained glass reflecting on the floor because of the sun was really neat, and the gift shop was entertaining. Sydnie, Amy and I bought a bar of delicious orange chocolate that we split. Then we wandered about the town. We found this really cool arch from like Norman or Roman times (seriously, at this point I can't remember) and this well that might have been dug as early as 65 AD and is still just sitting in the middle of town which was pretty cool.
Arches are fun!
Yeah, so then we were done in Lincoln and we piled back on the bus to continue onwards to York! We checked into our hostel there and then went off to explore the city. We walked up to the Shambles on top of the wall that used to surround the city. It was built in Norman times, so yeah, pretty legit, mostly because we got to walk on top of it.
Our next stop, or several stops depending on how you looked at it, was the Shambles. It's the old part of town with pubs and little shops everywhere. The houses and shops are built just as they used to be built in London. They start a normal distance apart, but the further up the stories go, the farther out into the street the houses are built. After the Great Fire in London they stopped building them that way, because it made it too easy for the fire to spread.
See how easy it would be for the fire to just hop across?
We got fish and chips for dinner whilst in the Shambles and also stopped in at Poundland, which is the English version of the Dollar Store. It was pretty exciting because it was in pounds and they had really cheap chocolate. (I swear that we head to the chocolate section every time that we enter a store automatically at this point to see if they have any varieties that we haven't tried). We also found this chocolate store (lots of small hand made chocolate store in all these little towns) with a real chocolate frog! I almost bought one, but I knew that it wouldn't last.
Chocolate frogs!
Anyway, it was really cool. Then that evening we went on a Ghost Walk. These are things that they apparently like to do in Northern England, because I saw them advertised in several of the towns we passed through. Basically they talk you for a walk around the town and point out important historical sites and then add ghost stories on top of it. It wasn't super scary, although he made the whole group jump once. The best part was his super cool Yorkshire accent. The linguistic part of me was freaking out. However, it was freezing cold (have I mentioned the insane wind yet?) so we went into this little restaurant and bought the most delicious hot chocolate I have ever tasted. Seriously, it was so amazing. Like whipped milk and cadbury chocolate and cinnamon and other unknown goodness.
So nice and warm, and ultra delicious.
Yeah, so we set out from there and actually ended up on the completely wrong side of town. We left the store and walked in the wrong direction apparently, so we ended up literally on the opposite end of the map that we have from where our hostel is supposed to be. It's a good thing that there were five of us and everyone was doing a good job at talking about nice fun stuff and acting completely unconcerned about being lost, or else I probably would have been in danger of freaking out. We all made it back safely though, and without even feeling like we were in danger. And that was the end of the first day.
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