On this day my journal will be opened for all to read. Will there be exciting stories of Hen parties? No, the writing that will make its way to the internet will detail just another day in my trip to England. The one detail that will make this trip stand out is the transition from small towns to booming London, my favorite city in the world, and the home to some of the happiest days of my life. It looks like I am getting a head of myself and I need to go back to me waking up in York before talking about London.

The window the group had to eat breakfast was only an hour a day, but with the prompt service we received this wasn’t a problem. We loaded our luggage onto the coach and walked to York Minster for our tour that would start in an hour. Since we had some time to kill the students decided to wander around the cathedral and get a feel for the magnitude of this giant gothic structure. At 10am the tour started and the guide dumped copious amounts of information at the group. I will attempt to recreate the experience the best I can.

The cathedral is unique for many reasons. It has all three gothic styles, 1 st and 3 rd phase as they are creatively titled. Another unique attribute is that it was built in one swoop over a period of 252 years instead of added on additions as time went on. Each section of the church was built in the style that was popular of the time. That explains the inclusion of all three gothic styles.

The Great West Window that was built in the 1400s and includes 128 pieces of major stained glass windows. This is not only great because of its size, but its importance because of the treaty of the city of York struck with the protestant rebels. The glass was spared if the Royalist town would turn power over to the Roundheads. They agreed obviously and now the town contains half of the world’s medieval glass.The floor below the Great West Window is from 1730 and is in the classic Greek style and was designed by Lord Burkinton

The knave was built from 191 until 1340 and the stained glass was paid for by donations. The glass is different from previous stained glass because it describes one individual’s life as opposed to multiple scenes. Second Phase gothic is the style of the Knave.

The roof was not the original; fire caused the destruction of the previous one. As you can see to the left,t he centerline was held together with blue and gray key bosses.If you look closesly you can see that they describe the eight phases of life.

The Normans were not the first to build on this ground. The first building on this site was in AD 71 by the Roman 9 th legion. They built a fort here to maintain the wild locals and hope to keep the order of the wild locals. In 625 the first attempt at a church was started and its first use was the marriage of the prince who commissioned it. This building was used until 1080 when the construction of a Norman Minster was begun. The Minster was large for its time but only the size of the two piers of the current knave.

The south transept consists of traditional Norman architecture. Besides the typical structure shape, it made use of the number five; an important number because it symbolizes the rules gave for us to live by. In this hall there is the tallest lance window in the world named the Five Sisters Window. As the picture shows, instead of using color, the artist uses seventy-one different geometric patterns to entertain the eye.

The East end was built in the style of Third Phase Gothic and contains huge sweeping windows and uses perpendicular lines to draw your eyes to the heavens. This portion was constructed in 1492 and has the largest window in the building. It is 75 feet tall and contains 105 panels. The panels are now larger than the previous windows due to technological improvements.

The Window was the end of the tour, and the last experience in the Minster was climbing the clock tower. There were only 275 steep steps through the narrow spiral staircase. The view was worth the climb.

After the long trek down the class was set free to eat lunch and explore York. On this day I discovered how annoying pigeons can be, when they attempted to take the food out of my hand while I was eating. After nearly kicking them on many occasions we explored the local shops and purchased many gifts.

At 3pm we met next to the coach and began the long trip to London and were left to our own entertainment for a majority of the way. During part of the ride we were allowed to watch Monty Python’s Life of Brian which was a pleasant interruption of the tedious nature of traveling by coach.

By evening we had reached the Travistock Hotel in central London. We now had daily access to the internet and close proximity to many Indian restaurants. After participating in both I decided that it was time to journal and go to bed.

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