Catching Up, Part 1 (Castle Howard)

I know, I know, long time no post. Things got a bit crazy at the end of the semester. So in the first of several catch-up posts, I bring you Castle Howard, the filming site for both film/tv versions of Brideshead Revisited, and despite the tourists that come crawling through, still the family home of the Howard family, including their two small children, Merlin and Octavia. Apparently rich British people give their kids weird names just like rich Americans.

Public transportation makes getting to the Castle a bit... complicated. One can take a bus to one of several small nearby towns, and there is a bus twice a day from one of them to the Castle and then back again in the afternoon. To do that, however, we'd have had to leave super early in the morning, so we opted for a later bus that the Yorkshire Tripplanner suggested would put us within walking distance of the Castle. It did not. So we ended up taking a cab, but it worked out and we were able to catch the bus back to town in the afternoon. We went one weekend in December because they were all decked out for Christmas; there was even a Father Christmas giving presents to kiddies that came.

You know you're getting close when you reach an Egyptian Obelisk in the middle of a roundabout near the castle's entrance and then you get to walk through a courtyard of gift shops before you even buy your entrance ticket. Once on the grounds, we were greeted by freely-wandering peacocks and the option to walk the ~500 yards to the Castle proper or to take a Christmas train thing that had a surprisingly long line (excuse me, queue.) We opted to walk so we could stop by the gardens on our way in. I'm sure the gardens are quite the sight to see in the spring/summer when things are in bloom, but even in winter it was kind of cool to see; very Secret Garden- it is walled in with hedgerows separating off sections.

Inside the Castle, you are taken through several historically-preserved rooms, as well as the set for some kind of bedroom death scene in Brideshead Revisited that was constructed in a burnt out wing of the Castle. I had to chuckle because the employee stationed in the set room was very concerned when I took a picture. "You realize this is just a film set? No historical value whatsoever?" Yes, yes, I was aware. Thanks. The house was all decked out for Christmas with trees and wreaths and garlands all over the place. Even the statues got decked out for the occasion.

Somehow I don't think that was what the artist originally intended. Here's a shot of the the interior of the dome in the central lounge-type room.

And here's the Atlas fountain.

That thing is huge by the way. This photo was taken from the previously mentioned Brideshead Revisited wing on the second floor of the castle. As a side note, if you ever want bulb-type Christmas tree ornaments, hit up the Castle gift shop. Every colour, size, texture, etc you can imagine, they have.

I think this dining room was my favorite of the decorated rooms.

I can't even begin to imagine living in that huge castle with tourists coming in and out all the time, but the Howards seem to do a good job keeping it a family home; family pictures decorate pretty much every available surface, which is pretty cute. After seeing what was open to the public inside the house, we took a less-than-direct hike up to the Temple of the Four Winds folly. Rich Brits with too much money/time on their hands in the 1800s built follies- decorative buildings in the style of Greek/Roman temples, Chinese temples/gardens, Egyptian pyramids, etc. 

The Temple of the Four Winds is one such folly in the style of Roman temples and is situated on a bluff with quite a view of the river and bridge plus the Yorkshire moors.

All in all, a good trip. The Castle/grounds combo ticket is a bit pricey, but worth it at least once. You can also buy tickets to just see the grounds, which might be worth it in the summer time to check out the gardens. There were also other follies/the lake to check out that we didn't have time for, what with the crazy bus schedule. It was also nice to get away for a day before week 10 and mad paper-writing began.

I forget what I've written about the grading system here, but basically, we don't get a grade for any of our classes/classwork. We get graded on three papers (which are written under the supervision of our professors from our module classes) and on our final dissertations. Even our language classes are just graded pass/fail on the basis of an exam we take the first week of summer term. It is a bit strange really. On the bright side, there are no classes during the last week of term; they just give us the time to write. The papers we turn in have only our testing identification number- no names- and are graded according to a rubric anonymously by two professors and by a third mysterious figure with no connection to the university, who is meant to ensure that grading by the professors is fair. Grades should be coming out shortly, so we'll see how that goes. Next catch up entry: Yorkshire/England gets snow for the first time in forever, just in time for most of us at the CMS to try to get home to the States for Christmas.

Christmas Starts Early in England

Ahh, Christmas. That most wonderful time of the year. Now if only York would stop hitting almost 60 degrees in the afternoon so that we can see it all covered with snow! While in the States, the unofficial start of the holiday season is the day after Thanksgiving, it starts about a week earlier here since they don't celebrate Thanksgiving. The city of York kick started the holiday season last Thursday with the First Night Festival, which of course we had to go to.

Buildings were lit up and fairy lights were on the trees.

Shops were also open late, and the outdoor market will be selling Christmas gifts & craft items everyday until late.

And for the kiddies, there's a baby carnival with three really lame rides- a tiny carousel, a train that goes around in a circle, and cars that go around in a circle. Hope you like circles kids. But the booths had some cool stuff to look at, including these really cute finger puppets. Rachel bought some for her 2 year old nephew and we had a lot of fun picking out which ones she got.

In addition to "normal" animals like lions, tigers, monkeys and cows, there were some fun ones like hermit crabs, seahorses, and octopi. There were also vendors selling a lot of woodwork, jewelry, cheese, candy, t-shirts, knit sweaters/hats, etc.

In mid-December, York hosts the Festival of Angels. On First Night, there was a preview of the ice sculpture to come during the festival of angels. Plus all the store windows are all decked out for Christmas, including the Disney Store and the Jorvik Viking Centre.

How cute is that? In case you were wondering, you can in fact buy Viking-themed Christmas gear, including runic ornaments and Santa Viking hats (basically a red felt santa hat stuck on top of a horned Viking helmet.) Anyway, we checked out the outdoor ice rink that opened that night, but passed on skating since it wasn't really cold enough yet and the ice was melting pretty fast. The few people out there were kind of skating in puddles. So we grabbed Italian hot chocolate (what can I say, I'm a total sucker for thick, dark chocolatey deliciousness. Nobody does food like the Italians) and headed out to listen to some Christmas tunes played by a local wind band around the Christmas tree in the square (it was windy, the tree isn't quite as Charlie Brown-ish as it looks.)

We also saw a parade of little ones with glowing stars and their parents led by Santa. I'm not really sure what the significance of the parade was, but it was kind of cute. It looked like the kids decorated their own stars because the colored patches were different on each one.

Churches were lit up in purple (the liturgical color of the Advent season), and even the Minster got involved.

So fun stuff :) Next weekend, there is the St Nicolas Fayre, with more outdoor shopping marts to peruse, as well as a Medieval market. I have no idea what will be at the medieval market, but I'm intrigued to find out more! Then in December, the International Christmas Fayre arrives in Parliament Street, so that will be fun to check out too. York does all kinds of stuff for Christmas- it likes to claim that its the best destination in the UK for the season. Judging by the number of tourists, I'd say that's probably accurate. The number of tourists had dropped down after October, but I guess quaint English Christmas has a lot of appeal.

This weekend, I headed north to visit Wearmouth & Jarrow, the "one monastery in two places" most famous for being the home of Bede, English medieval author/historian extraordinaire. So we checked out the ruins of the monastery at Jarrow, the World of Bede museum, and THEIR Christmas fayre. But more on that + pictures in the next entry.