Train trip to York

Today, we began our 12 day journey through England. Part of the trip will be with the Colgate students, and for the other part (in London), we will be on our own. The weekend has been full with laundering, packing, shopping, cleaning, and more packing in preparation for the trip, and since the clocks turned forward for daylight savings on Sunday morning, there was the added pressure of losing an hour. What’s more, when I woke up this morning, I saw that the lead story on the BBC was that the East Coast train line was completely shut down as a result of a signal malfunction in Yorkshire on Saturday, and the rail services through northern England and southern Scotland were all gobbed up as a result. We were scheduled to train from St. Andrews to Edinburgh, then on to York, right through Newcastle and all the backups. When I tried to check on the status of the day’s trains, as was suggested by BBC, I found that no one was publishing anything, and we were advised to “jes turn up” at the station and see what happens. A very Scottish suggestion!

In the end, our trains traveled on “shhh-edule” (as they say here) and we made it to Edinburgh, then transferred to the high speed line towards London with no problem. There was a rowdy group of blokes sitting just ahead of us who must have been headed on a “stag do” in London who were using some very colorful language, but Emma and John were consumed with rifting through the weeks-worth of snacks that we had brought, and fortunately didn’t notice. Plus, their accent was so thick that the kids probably wouldn’t have understood had the words been spoken directly to them! We arrived in York at about 2:00 pm and walked to the Ace Hotel to drop our luggage (thankfully!). The hotel is just inside the 14^th century city walls, near Mickelgate Bar actually a gate…) which marked the beginning of the road to London. York is one of the largest cities in northern England, and was the military capital of Roman Britain. Once the Romans vacated, the Saxons built a city here, but they were in turn defeated by the Vikings, who were in turn moved out by the Normans. In . In other words, lots of history happening here…

The kids are especially impressed with the hotel, which is full of original beams and woodwork, and historic markers on each room that explain what the original owners might have used it for. There’s a ballroom downstairs that has been converted into dormitories, and a parlor that was reserved for the women. One of the rooms on the second floor has a placard outside that recounts an R-rated story about the mistress of the house and a servant, but the kids haven’t stumbled upon that one yet. Our room is on the top floor, and was used as a bedroom by up to nine servants at one time. They are quite impressed with the sleigh beds all lined up in a row, the incredibly high wood-timbered ceilings with an iron chandelier hanging from the center, and the fireplace right in the middle. Of course, they are equally impressed by the pairs of slippers that were left for us in the room, and the hygiene kits which come with toothbrushes, and wee tubes of toothpaste…

Once we were “sorted” at the hotel, we walked to the Yorkshire Museum, which tells the natural and archaeological history of the county, and includes exhibits on the Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and Viking aspects of York.

The students all went through the museum on their own, then wandered off to explore some more of the city. The museum was interesting, but I couldn’t get the kids to take too much notice, since they were so happy to be traveling with the students again, and would periodically sidle up to one of them to ask something along the lines of, “So, once? When I was at school? And my friend Everett accidentally tooted?” The students were kind enough to pretend to find it charming. After about an hour in the museum, a small group of us walked over to the ruins of St. Mary’s Abbey, then through the nearby museum gardens and along the city walls. It was a gorgeous day, and the city is filled with one impossibly gorgeous building after another, so overall it made for quite an enjoyable afternoon.

We met back up as a group at the hotel at 6:30, then walked a block to a Turkish restaurant. It was a decent spot, chosen mostly because it was the only place that would return my email about accepting a booking of 20+ people for a Sunday night. Our meals were fine, though not fabulous, but there was a lot of food, so everyone looked pretty happy, and we ended up staying for just over two hours. I thought that some of the students would head out after dinner, so I hustled the kids upstairs while David passed out room keys and discussed tomorrow’s itinerary. When he came up, though, he said that none of them were going out since the hotel had a sauna in the basement! I guess that they must have been a little short of sleep with our early departure and daylight savings time.