York (the old, not the New)

I can’t say I’ve ever been to New York… but last week I visited the old one! And when I say ‘old’, I mean old. The city of York, England was established by the Romans in 71 A.D. and has a lot of fascinating history. I was only there for three days, but I feel like I was able to explore most of the city and learn a LOT (that’s how I justify missing a few classes…). Here are some highlights from my trip!

York Minster

York Minster was probably my favorite attraction in York. It is an impressive, gothic-style cathedral that took over 200 years to build! Buried underneath the cathedral are the remains of a church built by the Romans. So, in reality, the Minster’s history goes much further back than medieval times.

I was able to get a guided tour of the inside of the cathedral, and I’m very thankful I did. I would not have known what I was looking at otherwise! The tour guide pointed out details such as the stained glass, statues, and carvings and told us lots of great stories. My favorite story was about part of the cathedral catching fire (this happened several times, unfortunately). The firemen purposely sprayed the water in a way that made the roof of that section collapse so that they didn’t damage other parts of the cathedral. After the fire was put out, they were running around frantically trying to clean the water up before it spread to the rest of the building. However, when they stepped inside the cathedral, the water had disappeared. It turns out that the Romans had built a drainage system beneath the cathedral, and it had drained all of the water that the firemen had sprayed on the burning building!

The Yorkshire Museum

I’m usually not a museum-lover, but I’m glad I visited the Yorkshire Museum. I was able to see the fossils of sea dragons, the skeleton of a Roman gladiator, and lots of Viking treasures. I couldn’t believe how old some of the artifacts were! There were arrow tips and coins from 3000 B.C.!!! The exhibits really helped me piece together the history of York. As I mentioned earlier, the Romans established the city in 71 A.D.. A few hundred years later, the Vikings arrived and decided to name the city “Jórvík”. The Anglo-Saxons came not too long after that. It was interesting to see both the Roman and Viking influences within the city.

Walking the wall

On the topic of Romans… I also walked along the city walls which were originally built by the Romans and then rebuilt later on. They surround the entire city center and provide a great view of the city. According to my ghost tour guide, they used to close the gates every night during the medieval times to prevent people from leaving or entering the city.

The Shambles

Another wonderful place in York was a touristy street called The Shambles. It was once the most disgusting street in York, and now it’s one of the most beautiful! There were lots of fun shops, my favorite being The Potions Cauldron: a Harry Potter themed shop where you could buy butterbeer, chocolate frogs, and “poisoned” beverages. I tried one of the “poisoned” drinks, and after checking my I.D. the girl at the counter said, “you’re the first person I’ve met from Wisconsin!”.

In case you’re wondering why The Shambles used to be the most disgusting street in York… it’s because the street was lined with butcher shops. My ghost tour guide said that a river of blood used to run down the street along with a bunch of animal parts. Since it was already a river of waste, the people living above the shops dumped their waste in it as well.

I’m glad I visited The Shambles in 2022…

A spooky ghost tour

York is apparently one of the most haunted cities in the U.K., so I decided to go on a ghost tour. The tour started at 8:00 pm, so it was already pitch dark and a bit spooky outside. The tour guide was incredible — the best I’ve ever had! He was very dramatic and quite hilarious. His opening line was, “Welcome to HORRIBLE YOOOOOORK”.

We walked around the entire city, stopping at several locations for the guide to tell stories. The one that stuck with me the most was a story about a school for orphans. The headmaster was a greedy man who took all of the money from the school and used it to buy alcohol. Meanwhile, the children starved because he wasn’t providing for them. Several of the children eventually died of starvation, and his solution was to stuff their dead bodies in the wall of the building. Eventually, the people started to smell something terrible and decided to investigate the building. They found the headmaster drunk in his office with the decomposing bodies hidden behind a board. According to the tour guide, you can hear the footsteps of running children if you visit the school at night. If you hear them running, you will then see the shadow of the headmaster. And then, you better run.

Other gruesome facts I learned from the tour are:

• people used to watch criminals be executed for entertainment during the breaks at races
• when people contracted the Black Plague, they would get boarded up in their houses… on several occasions children whose parents were sick ended up dying of starvation but never got the plague
• an old lady got burned alive for “witchery” just because she took in a stray black cat
• no matter where you are in York, you’re probably standing above a dead body because the city was built on top of a massive grave

Even though I don’t usually enjoy scary movies/books/stories I had a great time on the ghost tour. It brought out the spooky side to York that I would’ve otherwise missed!

Other highlights from the week

Apparently I didn’t get spooked enough because Alyssa, Brennan and I spent all of Friday night roaming around St. Machar’s cemetery and telling ghost stories. I didn’t have anything to contribute, but they sure had some great stories! At one point, we were standing in a dark corner of the cemetery when the church bell rang out. We all screamed, and there were two American men there to witness it. They had been looking for the burial site of one of William Wallace’s quarters (he was drawn and quartered, and each piece was buried in a different location). It was difficult to find because it was an unmarked site, but they eventually found it.

Saturday morning, Brennan and I caught a short train to Inverurie which is just northwest of Aberdeen. We went to a whisky shop and asked about doing a whisky tasting of some kind. The lady working said, “let me make a quick call”, and within a couple of hours the owner of the shop was giving us a personalized whisky tasting experience! He started by asking us how experienced we were with whisky and whether we would like to try whiskies from different casks or regions. We chose to explore the regions.

I learned how to properly drink whisky, which was honestly SO helpful. First, you have to sniff the whisky and think about what it reminds you of. To get better at this part, Mike suggested that we sniff every possible scent that we can from here on out. For example, we should smell all of the spices at the grocery store so that we develop a better vocabulary for describing the aromas in the whisky. After you get a good sense of how the whisky smells, you have to put a little in your mouth and chew it until your tongue starts to burn. You don’t want to hold it in too long or else you will burn your taste buds, but the purpose of doing this is to prepare your palate. Next, you take a normal sip. If it’s too strong, you can add a couple drops of water.

By the end of the experience, Brennan and I had each drank SIX drams of whisky. They weren’t kidding when they said we’d be stumbling out of that place!

Today was catch-up day for me. I slept in, did laundry, and worked on my essay. Then, Merit and I met up at about 2:30 to get a cup of tea downtown. We went to the same place as last time, Cups, and I got the same type of tea because I’ve had enough adventure for the week 🤣. This time, my African winter tea came out in the cutest little elephant tea pot!

That’s all for now!

Until next time,

Clara