Lincoln Trip!

So today we had our first British Studies trip. In addition to our lectures and our seminars they take us on a few trips over the course of the semester to plays that played a special significance or coincide with what we are studying at that time. So today, we went to Lincoln. Which is a little town about an hour away by coach. Lincoln's claim to fame is it's Cathedral, which is one of the most beautiful in England. There also is a castle there that was built around the time of William the Conquerer. 

When we left this morning it was bitterly cold and spitting rain. Nasty! The coaches were late, of course, and there was a great rush to get us all out of there when they finally did arrive. Because there were 144 of us we were split up into 4 groups when we got to Lincoln. The first thing my group was supposed to tour was the Roman Ruins. Apparently when the Romans were here, roughly 42 AD- 407 AD they had a settlement here. We saw a few gate remains, a couple walls and an amazing arch. You could stay that stones are stones, but when you are walking under an arch that has been standing without fail for almost 2000 years and you think about all the millions of other people who have also walked beneath that arch... well, it changes things a little. Unfortunately for our entire tour of the Roman Ruins it was freezing and raining so it was not as interesting as it might have been were it better weather. After that we had 2 hours to kill until  our next tour so a few of us went to a pub called Magna Carta, where we had lunch.  After lunch we just milled about Lincoln, which is a charming little market town. After lunch we got to tour the castle, which was incredible and we saw one of the four remaining copies of the Magna Carta. In the document there are no capital letters and no punctuation and it was all written in a form of Latin shorthand so I honestly have no idea how they were able to translate it.

After that they took us over to the Lincoln Cathedral which was absolutely stunning, and enormous! It was originally Roman Catholic, but like almost all churches in England was switched over to Anglican with he reign of Henry VIII. The Cathedral is also incredibly unique because it includes 3 major forms of architecture. It has Norman-Angle columns and Romanesque arches; It has early gothic windows and more slender columns, and it has lots of decorative architecture it it's huge stain glass windows and thin fluted columns. If you ever come to England a day trip to Lincoln is a must. 

I have also started up a website devoted just to my pictures so please go there if you are interested in seeing more pictures. But I will post a few here from my Lincoln Trip.