Durham and Lindisfarne

Saturday we took a class excursion to Durham to see the cathedral and to Lindisfarne, on the Holy Island, to see the priory and castle.

Durham Cathedral was beautiful, and has won lots of architecture and beloved building awards.   No pictures were allowed inside so I have to rely on memory, but it was definitely one of the coolest cathedrals I've seen (and I've seen a lot)!

Sidenote: being in England just spurs a lot of Harry Potter trivia.  Some parts of the HP movies were filmed at Durham Cathedral, and this week I learned that Mrs. Norris, the crotchety old cat, is named after a character in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park.  The Brits do seem to love HP as much as we do!

We drove two more hours to Lindisfarne.  The Holy Island, as it is known, is only an island at high tide, and we made it back without getting trapped!  We visited the priory, which is a place where monks once lived, and is also the place where Celtic Christianity was first introduced to Britain.  Then we hiked up to Lindisfarne Castle.  We were supposed to go inside, but it was mysteriously closed.  By then the sun had come out and we were in one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen, so we were happy to explore the coast and the fields, complete with sheep!


Today has been full of homework.  I wrote a paper about W.H. Auden, whom I love, and read a bit of Boudica, a novel about the native Brits rebelling against Rome that prof. Bratt has assigned us.  This week is looking good, I hope you all enjoy yours as well.

Lullaby

Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.

Soul and body have no bounds:
To lovers as they lie upon
Her tolerant enchanted slope
In their ordinary swoon,
Grave the vision Venus sends
Of supernatural sympathy,
Universal love and hope;
While an abstract insight wakes
Among the glaciers and the rocks
The hermit's carnal ecstasy.

Certainty, fidelity
On the stroke of midnight pass
Like vibrations of a bell
And fashionable madmen raise
Their pedantic boring cry:
Every farthing of the cost,
All the dreaded cards foretell,
Shall be paid, but from this night
Not a whisper, not a thought,
Not a kiss nor look be lost.

Beauty, midnight, vision dies:
Let the winds of dawn that blow
Softly round your dreaming head
Such a day of welcome show
Eye and knocking heart may bless,
Find our mortal world enough;
Noons of dryness find you fed
By the involuntary powers,
Nights of insult let you pass
Watched by every human love.

Manchester

My Mondays, and the Mondays of several of my fellow Knights, are free of those pesky classes, so we decided to take the train to Manchester for the day.  It was great to see a new city, and Manchester felt much more "city-like" than York does.  It felt bigger, had more cars, more noise, more tall buildings, etc. 

We didn't exactly have a plan for the day, which makes my structure-loving self nervous, but I'm definitely learning to go with the flow.  We didn't usually know exactly where we were, but luckily there were quite a few maps and some helpful people around.  We saw the town hall, the university campus, the Manchester Museum, a beautiful church, the John Rylands library,  had some great food (traditional English for brunch, awesome Asian fusion for dinner), and finished off the day with a ride on the super tourist-y Wheel of Manchester - a giant ferris wheel! Seeing the city by night from on high was wonderful.

We managed not to miss/get on the wrong train at all, and it was good to practice navigating stations as that's what I'll be doing all Easter break.

Wednesday our class visited the Yorkshire Museum.  York has a strong Roman history, and many Roman objects have been discovered underground. The museum gave a great impression of what life was like for ancient people living in Eboracum (the Roman name for York). 

I've started my weekend already!  We're going to Durham and Lindisfarne all day Saturday with the class, but other than that I think I'm just going to get ahead on some assignments - lots of novels to read!

Manchester City Hall

Brunch in Manchester

The Wheel of Manchester

Roman mosaic found in York.  You could walk on it and everything!

The ruins of a church near the Yorkshire Museum.

Settling In

I've never been very good at keeping a journal, hopefully I'll do better with blogging.  Nothing very exciting to report here, though.

I had my first Creative Writing class on Thursday.  The professor is Canadian (that's right, I'm in Britain but have zero British professors) and seems great - very young and lively.  We did some writing straight away and then had to read our compositions out loud to a small group. Wasn't expecting that, but the class seems nice enough. Very small, only eight people were there (but maybe some were missing).

Friday night we went to Ken and Laurel's for open house and played games for a while, then stopped by the student union and visited a bar called Dusk.  Both were super busy, we couldn't even sit down!  It's been really interesting to go to bars and stuff here and "observe." The students here are so used to this sort of atmosphere and fun, they think it's hilarious that we Americans are so inexperienced.

Saturday and today I barely left my room. We have to have Mansfield Park by Jane Austen read for Thursday, along with some other homework, so I wanted to get that finished.  Alas.  That is not a short book, folks.  And it's not exactly exciting.  Basically: sexual tension...building...building...I'm too shy to talk to you...building...marriage proposal!...I don't actually love you....I'm pining after someone else....woe is me!  Also, back then when you were tired from walking or horse-riding, they called it being "knocked up."  Tee hee.

Tomorrow I'm going to Manchester for the day with a few others. Train tickets were about 13 pounds total, so we thought it was worth a day trip to see another city.  I'll hopefully have some pictures up from that soon.

Love to you all!

Springtime!

This morning I saw beautiful sun outside my window, but being from Michigan, was not fooled.  Sunshine obviously means that is frigidly cold outside, so I dressed in trousers ("pants" here means underwear!), two pairs of socks, a shirt, a sweater, my winter coat, and a scarf.  I stepped outside and realized I had been fooled!  It was like springtime!  50 degrees (that's 10 celsius, folks) with a light breeze.  I unzipped my coat and headed to the library to get a few novels for my class. 
Needless to say, I changed clothes back in my room, then took a nice walk into the city.  Visited Poundland (everything is a pound!) and finally got a real tube of toothpaste and hangers for my clothes.

I had my first two classes today as well.  First up was Nineteenth Century Writing, where we're reading some Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, and the like.  The professor (called a tutor here) seems very cool, she's one of the youngest profs I've ever had, and she's American.  The class should be good, a typical lit class, but definitely less work than I'm used to at Calvin.  Lectures are only every other week with a smaller seminar every week.  We write one paper of 3,000 words and have an exam at the end of the semester.

Then I had Roman Legacy in Britain with professor Bratt (who said we may call him Ken - still getting used to that!)  This is my first history class since sophomore year of high school, and I was definitely overwhelmed by all the dates and city names and whatnot.  I have to turn that chronological/spatial part of my brain back on.  I do love history, though, so I'm excited for that class.  Today we talked about the history of York, which was founded by the Romans in like, 70 AD or something.  So, yeah.  Super old.

Also, best thing I learned today: I always knew that right and left were sometimes called dexter and sinister, but I had no idea why.  Turns out those were the Latin words for left and right!  We were talking about two main roads in the Roman city of York (which still exist as roads today) which were called Via Principalis Dextera and Via Prinicipalis Sinistra. Harry Potter nerd-dom fact: Professor Sinistra teaches astronomy, and the planets in the solar system orbit to the left.

Tomorrow we have our British culture class, and will do some touring of the city, including a walk down under the minster to the crypt to see the foundations of the ancient Roman city.

I'm off to Ken and Laurel's house to watch a movie.  Goodnight (or good afternoon) all!  Hope you survive Snowmageddon 2011.

Monday a few of us walked around the city on the walls. This is the "inside..."

... and here's how they look from the outside

This is the Yorkminster.  Gabe and I went Monday night to the Evensong service here, it was beautiful!

Weekend fun

This morning was WONDERFUL.  I finally got to sleep in and did so until about 10:30.  The dining hall where we eat is not open on weekends, so I ate some bread and Nutella that we bought at Sainsbury (English version of Meijer) last night.  I'll have to figure out a better plan for that situation later.  I'm finally all unpacked and organized now too. Pictures at the bottom of this post.

Yesterday we drove an hour and a half to the town of Whitby.  It's a sort of tourist-y, resort town. I could tell it would be really beautiful and busy in summer, but now that it's winter it's a cute and quiet little town with lots of shops, cafes, and beautiful views of the ocean.  The monastery was founded here in 657 and the abbey (having the same name as a building can be confusing!) was built in 1220.
History of Whitby Abbey.

Today the Calvin kids have been invited to a local church for "Tea and Toast," so we're heading over there at 4.  No other plans for today, and I don't start classes until Tuesday - looking forward to settling in and getting comfortable with the city.  I've been inside the walls (York is a walled city, the university is just outside) a few times.  No pictures yet, but it is beautiful.

Day one

We're here!  GR to Chicago was fine, Chicago to Manchester - not so fine. They decided to work on a bunch of mechanical stuff WHILE we were ON the plane.  So we sat at the loading dock for about three hours.  Yippie.  Add that to the 7.5 hour flight and I've had enough of planes for a while. 

We arrived at Manchester airport at 10 am, then took a two-hour charter bus ride to York.  I didn't sleep at all on the plane, but got in a nice nap on the bus.  We arrived in York, had a few minutes to grab some lunch and were thrust into orientation/registration activities.  Set up some very confusing internet site, took a whirlwind campus tour of which I remember almost nothing, sat in a classroom while a lady talked to us, almost fell asleep, ate dinner, went to an international student reception (I'm an international student, how weird!), hung out at the student union (which is a bar), played cards, and am now blogging in order to stay up a few more minutes to remedy jet lag.  Phew.

Best things so far: campus is BEAUTIFUL, no snow, cafeteria has been really good so far, and our group seems to be getting along really well.

Worst things so far: measurement differences (pounds not dollars, celsius not fahrenheit), confusion surrounding outlets and how to plug in my American devices, and just the general level of tiredness.

More orientation tomorrow, hopefully we will get a chance to see the city and do some grocery-type shopping.

Packing up, moving out

News flash.  Packing away enough of your life to survive for four months/two seasons/one semester/three weeks of travel in Europe is harder than it sounds.

My dorm room is almost empty, my suitcase is sort of packed and probably already too heavy, and my lovely roommate is sitting next to me on the couch.  She's pretty cool and I will miss her oodles.  Also, now she's playing Coldplay's "Fix You," which is possibly the saddest song ever.  Sheesh. 

It's sad to leave all my Calvin and Grand Rapids friends and family, but I'll be back before you know it (June 1).  Luckily, I've got some awesome friends coming along to York, and I'm looking forward to getting to know the rest of our group.

I'm beyond excited to leave tomorrow!  Our flight to Chicago leaves at 4:30, and then we leave for Manchester at 6:30 (ish?)  Then we hop on a bus to York, arrive mid-morning, and launch into a day of orientation.

Next post from across the pond!

Abby