July 8th- Caledonia and the North Day 4

July 8th, 2012 or 8th, July 2012.

Weather: A bit cloudy and grey as usual with slight sprinkling.

After waking up, I showered and quickly packed my belongings. Afterwards I hung out with some of my friends and had my final amazing British breakfast in Edinburgh University (sadly this time breakfast wasn't free.) We compared our stories and adventures, and soon we were all off....well almost.... Only one slight problem. One of my friends slept in and almost got left behind. Me and my friend Jason freaked out and he ended up rushing to find PAs to wake her up as we boarded the coach. Luckily my friend wasn't stranded and able to wake up and hurriedly pack.

University of Edinburgh :[ I'm going to miss staying at Baird's house.

Once Jason made it on the coach, he sat next to me and proceeded to sleep. I tried sleeping, but I found my neighbors chatting behind me quite annoying to the point that I could not fall asleep =\. Instead I spent my time reading part I to Dostoyevsky's "The Idiot." I must say....Dostoyevsky's words create quite the imagery of a dreary cold Russia. Anyways, I digress. A few pit stops later, I arrived at Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Water Garden only to unfortunately forget my camera, so I did not take amazing pictures of the beautiful Fountains Abbey; however, one of my friends Dora took a few pictures for me :) so here's one of them.

my shortness makes it hard to actually sit on the rock. Yay good awkward photos!

So some of you maybe wondering what is Fountains Abbey? Fountains Abbey is one of the largest and best preserved Cistercian (Catholic)/Bernardines monasteries in North Yorkshire England. Founded in 1132 it served for almost 400 years; however, in 1539 Henry VIII issued the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The Dissolution of the Monasteries left many abbey's and Catholic monasteries like Fountains Abbey sadly abandoned. The Dissolution of the Monasteries and the history of Tudor rule.....is really complicated so here's my brief history points about it: (no not Terrifying Tudors....more like Tudor Tools to power)

I do recommend this for anyone whom wants to know more without getting bored of history btw.

-Pope refused to grant King Henry VIII  a divorce from crazy Bloody Mary.
- Causes King Henry VIII to advance Reformation: English church splits from Roman church.
   Basically: (King not Pope is spiritual head and yay protestantism is created!)
-King Henry VIII declared borderline absolute power under 1534 Act of Supremacy...
-spent most of his inheritance from King Henry VII by mid 1530s....needed to find way to make money without imposing taxes..
-Why? Fund wars (Scotland & France) + decrease Church's power in England./ in general be rich.
-How? Henry put Thomas Cromwell in charge. Cromwell charged monasteries and bankrupted them.
-Bankrupting monasteries unfortunately caused most if not all abbey's to close by 1540...

 
What can you learn from history? It's good to be the king...because you can be the biggest douchebag and get away with it........That and most abbeys are not that well preserved :[. Anyways, Fountains Abbey is gorgeous and HUGE. I did not have time to visit the abbey and garden....I spent half of my time running with my first UCI friend Charles to the halfway point. 2 hours really is not enough time to see ALL of  garden or chapel (70+ acres of land) , so unfortunately I was not able to see St. Mary's church, or Studley's Park. I was able to see a great chunk of Fountains Abbey and a small almost Romanesque temple with Ionic and Dorian columns though and Robin Hood's woods. Here are some pictures from the internet of Fountains Abbey for those of you whom can't stand reading paragraphs of text.

Monk's Refectory (place where food was stored)

Exterior of Fountains Abbey

Gorgeous scenery :)

 On the coach way back, I continued to read Dostoevsky's "The Idiot." Afterwards, when we got back I proceeded to shower and do laundry. ;_; it costs .75 pounds to wash a load of laundry and 1.50 pounds to dry. Sigh. Laundry's going to be hell from now on.......After 2 hours of laundry hell, I got some Indian food with some of my fellow PKPers. Afterwards, I went back and crashed/ fell asleep because I was way too tired to do anything. Overall, I'd say it was quite the amazing 4 day journey, and while I do regret not doing a few things, I don't regret doing the things I've done either. I'm tired, but I can hardly contain my excitement for my second day of class tomorrow.  

Until next time,  Cheers!

Tina