Ghost Tour in York

I was going to name this post, "Why you shouldn't ever take me on a ghost tour," but that seemed obnoxiously long.  Or my other title was going to be, "Ghost tour, or just a bunch of really sad stories about people's deaths,"  Again, a bit long.  This story is about the only ghost tour I've ever been on in my life.  I guess it's good I experienced this activity in York.  It's been on the Discovery Channel as one of the most haunted cities in the world.  Since we were visiting England in the dead of winter (no pun intended), and there was nothing really to do in the evenings, we decided to go on the famous ghost tour one evening.

I learned two things that night.  No, three things.  You shouldn't take me on your next ghost tour, it seemed like a bunch of really depressing stories of death, and that English people think the sidewalk is called "the pavement."

When we started the tour, our lovely tour guide, who looked liked he just got done working a shift at the Haunted Mansion in Disney World, gathered the people together.  He insisted we all gather on the pavement.  Fine, I'll stand in the road.  I'm standing in the road like you asked, why do you keep pointing the the sidewalk and asking me to get on the pavement?!?!  At this point, my whitty side was overly humored and kept this 'discussion' up for another minute before complying with his confusing request.

During the tour he told us about kids being murdered and stored in the basement of an orphanage, about a girl being locked in her house because she had the plague and her family left her, and about this girl who fell three stories to her death in the middle of a party held by her father.  All in all, it was a rather depressing evening.  It was this last story that convinced me never to go on another ghost tour.

Our guide told us the story about the little girl.  He also said that on some nights they can get her spirit to appear in the window on the third floor.  As the people gathered for this impromptu seance, my friends and I all back away from the group.  None of us talked to each other until we were moving on to the next sad story.  As we began to talk we asked each other what we did when he asked the group to gather and call up the spirit of the girl.

We all had the same answer.  None of us did it.  In fact, quite the opposite, each of us stepped back and started praying for the repose of this girl's soul.  And this is when we decided that we should not go on any more ghost tours.  We were bad for business.  Instead of 'calling for the dead' we were trying to help them move on.  We all felt this was probably counter-productive for the ghost tour business.  Plus, who wants to walk around a town at night listening to depressing stories.

On a side note: we did learn a lot about the Roman soldiers and how far north in England they traveled.  In fact, there is still a Roman column up in the town.  Fine, no depressing stories, but I'll take a bit of history any time.

Finding the Middle of Town

We had spent three lovely days in York, England.  It's supposed to be one of the most haunted cities in the world.  One night, because there was nothing else to do, we went on a ghost tour.  Oh, but that's a story for another post.  Right now I'm going to tell you about our trip to find our next bed and breakfast.

We were headed to the Lake District of England.  It's pretty much due west from York, but since we had a limited visit to the UK, we decided to make a detour north and visit Scotland.  It was snowing and cold.  We left shortly after arriving.

The directions to the next B&B seemed pretty easy.  We just needed to find the middle of town in Hale, England.  At that point you turn left and follow the road up to the house.  Perhaps if we went straight to Hale instead of the little jaunt to Scotland we would have arrived in the daylight.  Again, my travels aren't about thinking that far forward.  Which is odd since I'm an ISTJ.  You'd think I'd demand more details.  I think I enjoy traveling with E_FPs too much.  They are quite the non-planners.

Well, Erica was driving, as she always does when we travel overseas.  This is also perplexing since she utterly detests driving and finds the whole experience stressful.  Add driving a manual on the opposite side of the road and you end up with several funny stories that you can laugh at later.  Laughing at the moment would probably result in a punch on the arm.  I've never tried this theory out, but the look on her face confirms my suspicions.

We followed the directions to the center of town.  Only problem, the center of town resembled a scene from a scary murder movie.  Were we in the right place? (A common phrase on my travels)  We had crossed over a small one car bridge that end at a 't' in the road.  At the other side was a small wooden sign that had Hale carved into it.  Behind the sign was a tiny church and a graveyard.  In the middle of the day I'm sure we would not have given it a second thought, but at night, we were a little worried.  After pausing for a minute to review the directions, and contemplate our apparent ensuing death by a crazy undertaker, we turned left and continued down a small dirt road.

Ah, we finally made it to our B&B.  It was winter, so we were the only tenants.  Our host was very friendly.  It would make a great escape for someone wanting to write the next great novel, or just get some peace and quiet.

Be Careful What You Ask For...

It had been a long day of driving in England. We'd had a lovely time in the Lake District, but were all three ready for bed. We had a reservation at a hotel chain in Reading, England. I was going to be leaving the next day back to the States. On our way there we stopped in Stratford-upon-Avon to say hello to Shakespeare's hometown. It was dark and everything was closed, but we were there and that's all we needed. We had a bit of trouble finding our hotel and by the time we got there it was rather late.

My friend went to the front desk and got our keys. She confirmed with the man that we needed a cot in the room because there were three of us. We walked down the hall and opened the door only to find a baby crib in the middle of the room. All three of us, with our heavy packs on our backs, fell over laughing at the sight. Why was there a baby crib in our room? And yes, my friends felt I should take the baby crib since I was the smallest. After composing ourselves, one of my friends went back to the front desk to clear up the matter.

Turns out, in case you ever need to know for your England travels, a cot is a baby crib. What we needed was a "put-up" bed. I'm not sure how the front desk looked at three adults checking into their hotel and not question the fact there were two beds and a crib in the room.