But first I should probably explain my title. Brittany is sick, and her ears are clogged, and so apparently she has an excuse to talk like Fran Drescher, from The Nanny. I feel no pity for her since she made fun of me the entire month I was sick and coughing up my lungs, but it is kind of funny to hear some of the way she's saying certain things.
But back to Fountains Abbey. It was a Cistercian monastery that was dissolved by Henry VIII during his rampage against the Catholic Church that wouldn't let him get divorced. And was also featured in the History Boys, which is actually why it's cool, let's be honest. We visited this amazingly gorgeous place on Monday and it's a good thing Liahna is a good sport, because I probably wouldn't have been able to put up with two other people oohing and ahing at rocks on the ground and stuff. Not to mention the long trip to get there. After three hours of sleep the night before because of crazy drunken Belgians next door the night before. Who were partying it up until 4:30 am when the night worker at the hostel finally came up and told them to shut it. But we had to get up at 5 am to catch a train to Leeds, to catch a bus to Ripen, to catch a bus to the Abbey. Let's just say that I slept most of the travel time.
But Fountains, as I've already stated, was amazing. We took a tour from this old dude who seemed enthralled by everything there, which made it interesting. Plus my High and Late Middle Ages history class last semester really came in handy. When all we did was talk about Cistercian monks, etc etc and the monastery was Cistercian. So thanks Dr. Dugan for your awesome class because it made everything our guide said that much more cool, since it made sense and all and wasn't pointless rambling. Plus, I kind of felt like I was on a tour with an older, less attractive version of Irwin (which will make sense to no one unless you've seen HB, and let's face it you probably haven't). So that made it fun as well.
It was kind of cold and windy, but in the sun it wasn't bad. We had stolen bread and jelly from our hostel and made PB&J, which we ate in the ruins of the infirmary sheltered from the wind by the remains of rock walls. It was pretty cool. Then we wandered around some more, until it was time to catch the very unfrequent bus back to Ripen, then catch another bus back to Leeds.
Here we ate fish and chips (which I did for the first time in Europe). It was really good, but really greasy, and since I hadn't eaten much else the rest of the day it did funky things to me. But nothing that a few pieces of good ol' free toast and tea at the hostel couldn't clear right up for me!
Oh side note, our bus back to Leeds was a double-decker (as was our one from Leeds for that matter) and we sat on the top deck right in front. Oohing and waving at people when we weren't asleep. Yes, we are in fact those people. And we're not embarrassed to admit it.
On Tuesday we wandered down to the Manchester Museum to see the Lindow Man, who was discovered near Manchester in 1984 preserved in a bog, probably buried there for about 2000 years. He was all leathery and weird. And missing most of his body between his upper torso and one of his legs. The rest was gone. The exhibit itself wasn't all that interesting, but the rest of the museum (which was free) was. We got to see this huge spider crab, which kind of freaked Brittany out, plus a whole bunch of stuffed animals, which we all found really interesting. Then we moved on to some live animals, then a little thing on how they re-create faces (like in Bones, which I find intriguing), and an exhibit on money, which I pretty much blindly walked through I was so hungry. So to curb my cravings, we walked back up to our hostel and ate more PB&J on stolen bread in Piccadilly Garden. Then we had some time to kill, so we thought we'd shop near our hostel. Except all of the stores were wholesale shops, so we couldn't go in. It was really disappointing because we'd really been wanting to go into one the whole time we were in Manchester. Stupid wholesale retailers. Who does that? So we wandered around Manchester not near our hostel, until 3 pm when we went to get our stuff and head to the train station.
This is where my story gets interesting. We were supposed to have 4 hours of travel time between Manchester and Bath, first going to Newport South Wales, and then to Bath. Except our train lost it's driver at Crew (wherever that is) so we had to go to Shrewsbury instead. Then from Shrewsbury we had to go to Birmingham. Where the train we were supposed to catch to Bristol Temple was canceled. So we had to wait for another one. To get to Bristol, then to get to Bath. Two hours late. And we didn't know where our hostel was. So we arrived in Bath around 10 pm, slaphappy, exhausted, hopped up on horrible trains that get lost in train purgatory that is Wales. But we eventually made it, even if we did scare off most of the English people who unfortunately were around us. Sorry.
Today, tomorrow and Friday we're in Bath, then we head to London. Tomorrow we plan on going to Stonehenge, then the next day we're daytripping it to Oxford to feel all prestigious or something. Or dumb. Whichever. But it should be cool. We're excited at least!
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