Friday, November 6th:
This afternoon we had a group tour of the Cathedral and the Cathedral’s Library Archives. The tour was nice, but if I may now consider myself a connoisseur (of sorts) of European tour guides, I’ve seen/heard better. The main significance of seeing this Cathedral was in the context of reading the Canterbury Tales, but also its general historical significance in England as a place of pilgrimage. This was due to the murder of Thomas Beckett (who became Saint Beckett) that is said to have occurred inside the Cathedral by men under the charge of Henry II. Regardless of the quality of our tour, however, I wouldn’t have considered my visit complete without one, so it served its purpose. Afterwards we had the chance to see several significant primary documents held in the Canterbury Cathedral Archives which were rather fascinating and had my professor near drooling.
The rest of the night consisted of a little window shopping and then finding dinner. I picked up some fish and chips (a concept I will sorely miss when coming home) and brought them back to the hotel to chill with my roommate.
Saturday, November 7th:
Today was a fabulous day! We had class in the morning, per usual, but as soon as it was over, my roommate Melissa K. and I went off to spend the afternoon together. We had been conniving since we arrived to go to Starbucks – conveniently located right outside the Cathedral precincts – so this is where we decided to start our day. I got a mocha and a chocolate muffin (talk about chocolate overload, haha), served in Starbucks’ Christmas cups, already! Complete with coffee, we strolled around town aimlessly, semi-trying to find the walls of Canterbury that we had heard you could walk on, but in actuality not looking very hard. It was great to have a such a genuine conversation about being abroad and how we were feeling at this point in the semester; I’m so thankful the way God has been bringing me different friendships in this trip that I didn’t expect. Eventually – after asking someone – we found where we could walk the walls of Canterbury, which gave us a beautiful, slightly-elevated view of the surrounding area. Still chatting away we walked back into town and hit up a pasty shop for a late lunch (I’m going to miss pasties too!). Afterwards we did some non-successful shopping (and by non-successful, I mean we didn’t buy anything), before I picked up a Subway sandwich for dinner and we headed back to the Cathedral Precincts. If I hadn’t mentioned it yet, the sun sets even earlier here than it does at home in the winter, so combined with stores closing early and the sun setting about dinner time, we often end up hanging out in our rooms during the evenings.
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