York, Fountains Abbey, and Castle Howard- October 27-28

API sponsored an overnight in York. It was a lot of fun to spend the weekend with the API group as we traveled to different place that I never would have know to go to on my own. We were up bright and early on Saturday to meet Carmen at Kings Cross. We took the train to York which was nice because we got to sleep a little bit extra. Once we got to York we dropped our bags at the hotel and started out with our day. We walked past Guy Fawkes house which was cool because Guy Fawkes day is actually today, November 5th. Everyone celebrates the burning of Guy Fawkes and has bonfires and fireworks and everything. We then headed to York Minster which is the big Cathedral in York. It was a beautiful church. Caitlyn, Roxanne and I had hoped to walk to the top of the cathedral to see the view but we missed the time to go up. After walking around the church, we saw some guy who was handing out coloring pages. We still had about 45 minutes inside the cathedral so we decided to pull the child out of us and color. We sat in the back of the church with our papers and colored pencils talking with some of the other API students and colored. It was pretty fun to feel like a kid again. This little old lady named Brenda came up to ask us about our project. She said she loved seeing grown children still coloring. She told us about where she lived and about this lady that had a plaque in the Church. The women died at the age of 38 and had 24 children. We all thought that was crazy!! Brenda was so precious. I loved listening to her.

After we left the minster, we walked towards the Shambles. The Shambles is an old street in York. You can only walk down it, no vehicles. It has a lot of different shops and things to look at and buy. The road itself was very narrow which didn't help with the amount of people that were walking on the street. We had a break for lunch and to check into our hotel. About half of the API group went to this pizza place for lunch. They ended up making the pizza right next to us which no one else seemed to care about but I thought it was cool.

 After checking into our hotel, Roxanne, Katie and I went to the Jorvik which is the underground viking village that was discovered underneath York about 50 years ago. It was really interesting but way different then I expected. It was a museum but part of it was a ride and you rode through the village. You sit in a cart and listen to this lady talk about the viking village and how the vikings lived. As you went through the ride, there were viking people figures that talked to you. It was slightly creepy but the three of us could not help but laugh. We were not suppose to take pictures but of course I was able to snap a few. After that we stopped at the chocolate factory and I had the best piece of chocolate cake ever. It was chocolate cake with chocolate frosting with kit kats around the outside and rolo's on top. The guy challenged us to eat the whole things and said no one ever had. Rozanne and I accepted the challenge and of course we each finished a piece. The guys was shocked but it was the best piece of cake ever.

That night we had a ghost tour through York. I was slightly disappointed in the tour to be totally honest. It wasn't scary and the guy who took us kept saying he knew the people he was telling the stories about. I highly doubt he actually knew them. I have definitely been on better ghost tours. After that we got dinner and had some drinks with a big part of the API group. Aside from the trips we do not do a lot as a whole group so its was really fun to all hang out for a while.

Sunday was my favorite day of the trip. I woke up after having an amazing sleep in my nice, warm, comfortable, queen size, hotel bed. We got on a bus after breakfast and headed to Fountains Abbey. Fountains Abbey is an old Monk's monastery that was destroyed by one of the kings of England. It was a lot of ruins which were really cool to walk around. Some of the rooms were labeled and you could kind of picture how they were set up. There were pheasants all around the property. They kind of looked like baby turkeys. Meg scared one at one point and when it took off flying, which we didn't know it could do, it sounded like a frog. We didnt realize there was a second one around and it all of  sudden took off as well squacking and scared us all. After we all screamed, we died laughing. I wish we had the reaction on camera because it was hilarious. We walked up to an area that they called the "roller coaster" because horse and buggies used to ride on it and it is very steep and the road twists and turns. We saw beautiful fall foliage and landscapes of the grounds around the Abbey.

 We were off to Castle Howard next. Castle Howard is the home of the Howard Family. Two of the Howard girls married into the royal family. It was cool because part of the Howard Family still lives in a wing of the house. As you walked through, they had the old paintings and portraits but you would also see digital photo's of the actually family that lives there now. Castle Howard is actually not a castle but if you ask me it should be. I am not really sure what classifies a house as a Castle but this one was beautiful. It is definitely my favorite castle or mansion that I have been to since being in England.  The grounds were amazing! I could picture people in the 1700's walking through the gardens and the boys taking the girls on strolls through the gardens in the beautiful ball gowns. It was definitely a magical place.

The York excursion was a lot of fun. I love that API does trips like these because I never would have known to go to Fountains Abbey or Castle Howard which were my favorite part of the weekend. We headed home after Castle Howard. I had 2 hours to get myself ready for my next big adventure which was my week touring Italy! Stay tuned as I continue posting this week about my travels. I had a long but amazing 9 days and I can't wait to share all the details!

Cheers,
Allie