Romans, Anglo-Saxons, and Vikings, oh my!

Ok, first of all, I must start this entry with perhaps the best things ever: Custard Creams. Now, you might be thinking, gee, those are just cookies. Whoop-di-doo. You would be wrong on two counts. 1) These are "biscuits." For a fun (read, frustrating) time, try to explain American southern-style biscuits to a Brit. Here biscuits are sandwich cookies. Something like a chocolate chip cookie would be considered a "cookie." 2) These are delicious. Biscuits are often eaten with tea, and this is really the best way to enjoy them. Yum. :D

Ok, now that I'm done gushing about the fact that I found custard creams in England, let us move on to what I've been up to the for the past few days. I went with a couple of my housemates to the Jorvik Viking Centre. Now, to get an idea of what this entailed, imagine the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney World if you've ever been on it. For those of you who haven't, they stick you on a moving boat thing and you ride through various scenes filled with moving animatronic pirates. Got that picture in your head? Now picture the pirates with matty blonde/red hair dressed as Vikings and positioned in a scene of York in the year 876. Now add the smells of excrement, livestock, fish, and ironworking. That's pretty much the Jorvik Viking Centre in a nutshell. Of course, they also have some more traditional museum-y type exhibits once you get off the ride. Now, while it was probably fairly authentic, I could have done without the man in the "privy" (read, hole surrounded by a chest-height fence) moaning and emitting foul odors. But maybe that's just me...

Moving on! Then we did the whole Minster kit and caboodle. A "Do Everything" Pass will allow you to wander around the minster proper and join a tour if you wish, visit the Museum/Crypt/Treasury located in the foundations of the Minster, and climb the 275 uneven stone steps up a tight spiral staircase to the top of the Tower. Of course, we found out on our way out that we could have gotten in for free with our U. of York cards. Oh well. Here's Constantine the Great (who was proclaimed Augustus at the site of York Minster) looking slightly less dignified than usual. Opposite him is a Roman column.

The column comes from directly under the Minster, which, incidentally, is the 5th incarnation of a minster church on the site. During the Roman period, the Roman fortress was located almost exactly where the Minster now stands (About a quarter of the Roman fortress is under the Minster's foundations). During repair work of the Minster foundations in the 60's, the Roman remains, including this column were discovered. Some of the original walls and some artifacts are now displayed in the Minster basement in the Museum. The column was re-erected on the Minster plaza. Good intentions, however, went awry. The column is actually standing upside down. Oops!

Anyway, back to adventures at the Minster, which is quickly becoming my favorite building ever. If you climbe 275 of these:

 you get to the top of the tower where you can see this! PS if the picture looks weird, its because I took it on the way down, not up :)

If you look just to the right of the tower on the left, you can just make out the ruins of St Mary's Abbey. I'm sparring you the close up photo I took in an attempt to not overwhelm this page with pictures.

You can also see these guys. Aren't they cute? :)

I'll put up a whole album of Minster pictures because I've got way too many to share here. Anyway, later that afternoon, we discovered the absolutely deliciousness of a strangely British (and apparently Canadian) food: fries (or chips here) covered with gravy and cheese. Sounds disgusting. I know. But so good. So good. Mmm.

Today, I went on one of the free walking tours of York offered by the York Association of Voluntary Guides. Our tour guide was a really cute older British lady. She took us around some of the Roman and Medieval sights, including the Museum Gardens. While I'd been in there, it was nice to hear some of the history not recorded on plaques or anything around the Gardens. For example, this is the Multiangular Tower, the most complete Roman tower standing. The city also placed several Roman caskets inside, which were discovered during the construction of a hotel elsewhere in the city. Here's a view from the outside that should show why it was named as it was.















We also saw an Anglo-Saxon tower built on top of older Roman walls, and took a walk along the medieval/Roman wall from Bootham Bar to Monk Bar.

Along the way, you get a nice view of the Treasurer's House, the Minster, and the Archbishop's House. From there we saw some of the city, including the oldest block of houses in the country. We ended up at the Shambles, the oldest medieval street preserved in the city. It was named because it used to be the butchers quarter, and the shops still have the meat hooks along the top of the shop windows. In Anglo-Saxon, "fleshammels" meant the street of the butchers. Today it and the surrounding area is fun to poke around, and has a hay market with fresh produce & cheap clothes to peruse.

Aside from poking around the city, I went to International Student Orientation yesterday. It was mostly a lot of pointless blathering by various people from various offices ("Hey, do you need to improve your English? Take our ESL classes!" "Plagarisim is bad!" etc.), but I did accomplish pretty much everything I will ever need to do on campus, so that was good. The school scanned my passport & visa so now the government won't come after me for coming into the country as a student and not showing up at school. I registered with the student health centre. I also got an introduction for banking privileges letter, took said letter to a booth set up by my chosen bank (the only one that DOESN'T charge between 5 and 10 pounds per month for the privilege of having a bank account) and opened up an account. I also got my very own University of York student card, so now I can start taking advantage of student specials. Woo!

Meanwhile, I've been brushing up on my Latin skills. Next week we have induction for the Centre for Medieval Studies and language placement tests, so I want to be able to remember SOMETHING about Latin :)

In US news, I'm completely upset that the Red Sox have gotten their butts handed to them by the Angels in games 1 & 2 of the ALDS. This is not acceptable. Dear Sox, please play better. Thank you.

I'll end this VERY long entry with a photo from that market I mentioned, must because I like it and I don't want to end with a rage about the Red Sox inability to hit a baseball.

P.S. Comments are totally welcome. Just sayin'. Especially if you spell like an American!

Student Visas

Preparing to move overseas for a year is a pretty daunting task. The UK Boarder Agency hasn't made the process any easier for students. Requirements for obtaining a student visa were changed in March and there has been a lot of confusion over the new processes.

Student visas now fall into what is called the "Points Based System." Applicants receive a number of points for supplying various documents and must receive a total of 40 points. 30 are awarded for providing a visa letter from their university stating that they are, in fact, going to be students at a UK university. 10 additional points are awarded for providing documentation proving the applicant has the necessary funds to pay their tuition fees and to support themselves for the first nine months of their degree program.

Personally, I think the points just confuse things. Why they don't just say that you are required to provide the various documents is beyond me. I don't see the reason for adding the points system at all. Adding additional confusion is the new requirement for "maintenance funds." Applicants must now show that they have at least 800 pounds a month for studies in London or 600 pounds per month for studies outside of London. Starting October 1st, applicants must have the necessary funds in a bank account under their name for at least 28 days prior to the date they submit their visa application. Since I applied before October 1st, I only had to prove that I had the necessary funds on the day I applied.

I understand the idea of requiring applicants to show that they can support themselves without relying on public funds once they get to the UK, but this whole process is, in my opinion, ridiculously complicated and unnecessarily confusing. A number of news articles confirm this. The number of international students in the UK is much lower than expected, in part due to problems obtaining a visa. Many students are turning to schools in Australia or the US because it is easier to get a student visa for these countries.

Thankfully, my visa application went through fairly easily. Applications from my home state are processed at the British Consulate in Los Angeles, which has an advertised turn around rate of about 15 days. However, due to the new requirements for student visas, all of the British Consulates faced delays processing applications. The Consulate in LA was backed up even further because they had a new IT system installed in mid-September and could not process new applications while the new system was being installed. I'll admit that I got nervous when I received an email this past weekend saying that my application was now in their system and should be processed in 10 days. I'd been planning to leave for York on October 2nd, but that would have been cutting it really close if I didn't get a visa until September 30th. I'd been waiting to buy plane tickets until I knew whether or not my visa application would be approved. But on Monday, I got an email that my visa application was approved, so I should receive it tomorrow and be all set.

Now to buy plane tickets and figure out how I'm going to get everything over there!