No, not minister...

Last summer, mid-July, I stood atop the York Minster, terrifying.

The Minster is a beautiful and majestic piece of art set in a city filled with remnants of Roman legions of the past, cobblestone streets and tiny medieval-ish neighborhoods with hardly space for a horse and wagon to get through. York is even the home of many ghosts --and is alleged to be the most haunted city in Europe.

One of the ghost stories we heard was from an archeologist who gave us a walking tour of the city --which was really awesome from an archeologist very interested and VERY unbiased in his history -- oh yes, back to the ghost story!

So our guide told us that in the city treasury building, the city official knew that the basement was haunted, but didn't tell some plumbers who had to fix some pipes in the basement. The workers came running upstairs white faced where they ran into the city official who laughed and said, "Did you see the legion?"
Apparently, once in awhile a Roman legion can be seen marching across the basement out of one wall, across the room and into the opposite wall...but only from the knee and up.

Our guide then explained that there was a Roman road that runs through York, but that by now, it is buried several meters below current levels. They estimate that the Roman road runs about 1-2 feet under the basement of the treasury! So the ghosts of the legion is actually marching on the Roman road! Crazy!

Okay, so back from my ramblings....

Our last day in York, we decided to climb the 275 steps to the Minster's tower --in circular mini-staircase we're talking about here. (btw, I just read that the minster "weighs 16,000 tonnes - about the same as 40 jumbo jets!") Anyhow, I hate going around in circles, so that wasn't very fun. There are actually two sets of stairs to climb.

The Minster is built in the shape of a cross, the main entrance is at the "base" of the cross  (left end in pic) and the tower in the center is where you finally get to the top. To reach the center tower, you have to go up by the right arm of the church, (the arm pointing down in the pic) across the roof, then where the roof meets the center tower, another staircase takes you to the top (you can actually take a virtual tour (in good quality) of the Minster here)

So we climbed the first staircase and came out onto the roof (well, there's a little walkway right on the edge with shifty pieces of metal/wood that you walk across since it's basically the gutter I guess). Yeah, so I got up there --such and EXHAUSTING climb let me tell you! -- and thought, okay, kinda scary. Then I stepped onto the little cobbled-together-looking pathway along the roof...that basically completed this feeling of fear! lol. But I was like, "okay, I can take this, I just feel a little freaked about being so high up on top of a building...breath, I can do this..??!!" Then back into the next staircase for another 100 something steps.

When I came out on top of the Minster tower, I was almost dead from exhaustion! lol. Then I got up and looked around....It was a great view, but I was pretty much freaked being on top of that building that I walked around once and then went back down! [I was just reading my journal I kept on the trip, which I wrote in print until I wrote out my thought, "What if the building collapses?!" It was in cursive. Lol, apparently I think in cursive:-P ]

Seriously, never before have I been so scared of being so high up...and I was on top of a building to boot. ...maybe it was the scaffolding and rickety path over the gutter.... I dunno. But instead of awe inspiring, as most found it, I was terrified! *shivers* Apparently I'm more afraid of falling to my death than of being crushed by the building coming down around me....

Interesting what we learn of ourselves as we dance through life.... :-)

Firelight Smiles

I just popped a can of Fresca as I'm sitting down to lunch, as the sound hits my ears, the memory of flights past come to mind. It's funny that this kinda thing seems to happen most often, not with family or familiar people or places, but to do with airports and flying.

If I catch the scent of perfumes mixed with a stale scent of cigarettes, parties don't come to mind, but walking through Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport does! I see the many different vendor stands and the casino  passing through my mind just as when I druggedly walked through Schiphol....

Then of course there's the smell of brewing coffee that they always serve on airlines, which I HATE! Okay, that could be biased by the fact that the first few times I flew I was really really sick.... So that smell of coffee isn't so cool to me nowadays, though it is getting better now. Plus, flying no longer makes me sick, I think I was just nervous flying off to boarding school for the first few times :-P

Of course there are sounds, besides the sound of a pop can opening that bring memories to me. My favorite memory is triggered by a sound...

When I was between 5-10yrs old:

      It's between 3 or 4am, I walk out of my room, I'm dressed in my night gown; the hallway is dark, but there is a faint orange glow coming from the living room fireplace as the fan system surrounding it breathes out warm air. There's only one kitchen light on, and Mom is working on Dad's lunch beneath its yellow gleams. Mom doesn't say a word, she just smiles at me.
      I sit down on the edge of the bench of the picnic-style table Dad made and just sit and watch while Mom loads Dad's black lunchbox. Behind me, the wood stove seems to be humming a lullaby as some of the red embers darken and begin to sleep. My tired eyes still squinting, I am content. The humming lets me know it's a happy home. 

      After a few minutes, Mom says, "You can go back to bed now...." and smiles. Silently I walk back to my room where I fall asleep as the fireplace softly hums it's lullaby.