Friday 26 July, 2013 York

I loved York.  It's a great small city.  Great as in fantastic, not as in huge, because that just wouldn't make any sense.  

Our first full day here we went to the Mickelgate Bar Museum.  It was a hole in the wall, literally.  York is surrounded by a wall that was built by different people at different times, starting with the Romans.  Mickelgate Bar was the entrance to the city, but it was also the jail and where heads of traitor's were displayed, and it is IN the wall.

 

I think Richard III would have done well had he minded his head

They had a little dress up area.

Oh, and we ran into some famous people too.

After that fun, we continued on our walk of the ancient wall.

 

We stopped for some food and Hannah fell asleep on my lap while waiting for our food.  After eating we took a painfully boring boat tour, along the River Ouse (pronounced ooze).  I'm not sure if the problem was not enough information to share, the guide's jokes were stale, or perhaps even with new material the guide would have been horrible, but I had a tough time staying awake.  

We returned to the house and went to sleep early.  Yesterday, Thursday, we spent going to four museums.  Clifford's Tower, the Castle Museum, Jorvik Viking Center, and the Chocolate Museum.

This is the gist of what I/we learned.  Around 50 CE the Romans arrived at what is now York, but they called it Eboracum.  Approximately 300 years later the Roman troops were called home, and the city lay abandoned for a few centuries.  Enter the Vikings, who called the town Jorvik (Yorvik), where they remained for a while.  Then the city just seemed to take turns fighting this group and that group, and now it's just this peaceful small city with a dark and quirky past, including chocolate.  The Quakers who were living here about 125 years ago, decided that chocolate could be the next big vice, and spent hours working on finding a way.  They did it, and the world has never been the same since.

Clifford's Tower is home to one of the most infamous events in English history; the murder of 150 Jews on March 16, 1190.

The Castle Museum is held in what was once two prisons; the women's prison, and debtor's prison.  They have videos that come on when you enter a cell, of a person speaking as if they are speaking directly to you.  There was a video of two children in debtor's prison, that was so unsettling I had to leave.  It also had some Victorian streets complete with shops and the faint smell of urine that I'm sure really existed in the streets of Victorian York.  Here's a candle shop and me incarcerated, NOT for public urination, I can assure you.

After that long day we limped back to the house where our guest, Jelle (Yella) invited us to join everyone with a barbecue of burgers and hotdogs.  We had a great time visiting with people, and feeling like part of a group.  I need people, and as much as I love Hannah, and have been enjoying her company, I longed for grown-ups.

Today I started the day by packing up and then dragging Hannah to two more places.  The National Railway Museum where she begged for a ride on a miniature train, and the Minster.  We basically ran through the Railway museum looking for the miniature train, and just by chance we got the last ride before the conductor left for lunch.

The Minster is a church that is nearly 1,000 years old  and took over 300 years to build.  Don't hire these guys to do a remodel in your house.

Hannah didn't like the minster nearly as much as I did, and after showing her where three people were interred, she asked me to stop.  I'm beginning to wonder if she's really my child.  When we were in the Viking museum I said, "Ooh Hannah look; a real skeleton!" She said, "Mom!  I don't want to see that."

Me:  Hannah, there's a body in there.

Hannah: silence accompanied by a burning stare

Me:  Hannah, there's a body in there.

Hannah: WOULD YOU PLEASE STOP TELLING ME?

Me:  Hannah, guess what's in there.

Hannah: MOM!  STOP!

Then we were done.  We went back to Jelle's to gather our belongings, and he and his daughter, Bella, gave us a ride to the train station, where we had about ten minutes to catch the train to London.  Now we're back, and on a different, larger boat.