Ely

I've been doing work all day (another Country House presentation on Monday, eek!) so I thought I'd take a break and do this. It is also 4:30 and completely dark out--I just checked on weather.com and the sunrise this morning was 7:29 am, and sunset at 3:54. This can be compared to Jtown, where the sunrise was 7:14 and sunset was 4:51...effectively, you people get almost 1 1/2 more hours of daylight a day there. Depressing.

Anyway...this post is about Ely, where I went last Friday. No complaining about weather then, because it was beautiful out, if a bit cold. It started with a typical Anna adventure: I got to the train station late, got my day pass, and knew that the train left at 9:57. I swear to you, when I looked at the monitor I saw one leaving then, as well as a bus. So I ran for the train. Once it was moving and the conductor read off the list of stops I realized it was definitely not the right train. I checked the map in the car, and I was heading toward the coast, not the midlands where I was supposed to be going. Now, two months ago I would have had a minor stroke at this, but it didn't even faze me (of course, two months ago I wouldn't have just hopped on a random train without checking the rail timetable more than once). So I ended up in Reedham, where I had 40 minutes to kill before getting the train BACK to Norwich. I walked around for awhile, and it was one of the smallest towns I've ever seen...it had no sidewalks, and I almost got hit by a lorry whilst walking in the road, but it was really pretty. The picture is from my walk. The conductor probably thought I was a total lunatic.

I went to Ely mainly to see the Cathedral (my parents went there when they were here, and my advisor told me to go there too) and it was worth it. Ely is a fairly small town too (one of my flatmates described it as "really pretty, but a little inbred") and it's got a good riverwalk and a few downtown streets with shops. I followed signs to the Cathedral, and had to go through this little gate and through a green field and then there was this view of it, with the horses in the front. I wanted to move there, really.

I walked around in there for awhile and then went on a tour. All my cathedral tour guides have been old women and hilarious, and this one was no exception. She was excited I was American, because she had just gotten back from "holiday" at the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas. I had to tell her that I haven't actually been to either place. It's a really interesting building (I won't go into the history too much here) but the coolest part is the octagonal lantern. It was built in the 14th century (the tower that was there collapsed) but the rest of the building is mostly 11th century. The picture doesn't really do it justice; it's pretty elaborately painted, which you can't really tell. They do have one stone that dates from the first building on the site, so that is 7th century. I know that's not very old in the grand scheme of life on earth, but it seems pretty old to me!!

The lady chapel is also interesting; it's the largest dedicated to the Virgin Mary in England. The statue is from there; my dad referred to it as a Touchdown Virgin, but apparently she is "supplicating". You could also see traces of Medieval paint on the walls, and all the people carved on the walls had their heads whacked off during the dissolution of the monarchies. I think that stuff is pretty cool (not defacing art, the history behind it). They also have a lot of side chapels, one completely dedicated to the soldiers in the World Wars from that area (that seems to be coming up a lot, doesn't it?) Since this area of the country is sooo flat, it was used as a major air field; there is a stained glass window commemorating that.

I walked around Ely for a little after that, stopped in a used book store and went down by the river. I got the train back to Norwich with no problem, although this one was much more crowded than my earlier ones. Still, I got a seat, and read some Alice in Wonderland which was nice. That probably deserves an explanation...one of my friends discovered that the UEA library has a HUGE collection of children's books (she currently has Mary Poppins out). I got it because I like children's books (especially British ones!) and also because I can't read The Kite Runner before I go to sleep without having nightmares, but I've realized that I've been having really weird dreams after reading Alice in Wonderland. For example, last night I had a dream that involved my Economics professor from last semester giving me Greek olives, and then I was in a pizza place, but they had cheesecake instead, and I was knitting, and someone who worked there kept trying to steal my knitting and cast off for me, and I woke up in a panic thinking that my knitting had been messed up. Maybe I should just read the "Queen Anne Revival Architecture" book I checked out today, because I'm pretty sure that'll put me right to sleep...

Long tangent aside, Ely was really good, I am going to go find dinner, and for those of you on break, I hope you are having fun!