Saturday, we got up and went to a few craft fairs in York, and then tried again to go to the Minster. It was closed again, at least until 1:00. So we went back to the Yorkshire Gardens and wandered around the abbey for a bit, and then walked on the medieval walls of the city before checking out the market and getting some lunch. Then, we went to York Minster. It was really impressive. It was absolutely huge (it is the largest Gothic cathedral in Northern Europe), but there were a lot of people there. Usually, when I'm in a cathedral, I wander around awestruck, trying to imagine what it was like to build the thing, or what it would be like to genuinely worship there. The thing is, this requires quiet, and the Minster was not quiet. It was lovely, though, and we got to go down into the undercroft and see the remains/foundations of the Roman fortress and the Norman cathedral that still stand. Also, we got to see the treasury, which houses silver from churches all over Yorkshire, and the crypt, which has the tomb of St. William, Yorkshire's patron saint.
Saturday evening, we had dinner in the hostel again, and were just going to sit in the kitchen and read and write quietly until going to bed early. However, we met some more of the guys who work at the hostel--two guys from Australia and one from South Africa. They were interesting, to say the least. They were actually all pretty openly racist, which was shocking to me. I'm used to the cloaked American racism. Also, until they started drinking, they were kind of negative about England. But one of the Australians showed us pictures from when he was in France and Italy, and they told us about their countries and their times in England, and made fun of us for being American (of course), so it was okay.
Sunday we had planned on getting up early to catch a 9:00 train from York to Peterborough, and we did, except it was REALLY hard to get up that early. You see, a bunch of French travellers checked into the hostel Saturday night, and spent from about 2-5AM running into our room, turning on all the lights, shouting at each other, turning off the lights, and slamming the door. Even after we told them to quiet down, they still talked really loudly, only then they included multiple "shushs". It was really obnoxious. And one English guy started in on us when I said we had to get up early to catch the train. I don't know why it made him so mad. Anyway, up until that point, our experiences with hostels had all been very good. I still like them. They're cheap and you tend to meet a lot of people.
Anyway, we did get up early for the train, and caught it, and once we were in Peterborough, we had to catch a bus to Bury St. Edmunds, then a train to Stowmarket, and then another train to Norwich. It was really long and complicated and we didn't get home until 3:30. Apparently, there was a train derailed between Peterborough and Ely, right on our way home, so we had to go around. Oh well. We made it back safe and sound.
Oh, and pictures aren't working again, and it's late and I'm tired, so you'll just have to wait until I stop being lazy and put them up on Flickr. Sorry!
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