October 31, 2003

Sometime after the Romans came to England, left, and stopped mattering,* the Vikings showed up. The Vikings, as we all know from the definitive source Hagar the Horrible, were a race of jolly horned-headed people who often neglected their wives for short of periods of time and viewed raiding England as a pastime akin to mah-jongg. They would raid the eastern coast, up and down, off and on, until one day they decided to actually settle down for a while. "We've been setting fire to the landscape so often that I don't think we ever stopped to really appreciate the landscape," the Vikings said to each other, conveniently speaking modern English. And besides, they reasoned, Scandinavia is pretty dang cold, what with it being practically adjacent to the top of the Mercator projection.

So the Vikings settled down in England in a region that would become known as the "Danelaw," because "Land O' Vikings" didn't have quite as nice a ring to it. One of the major cities in the Danelaw, or maybe the only major city (I wasn't there, how should I know?) was York, or as the Danes called it before it was founded, "nothing." Then they founded it, and they called it "Jorvik," thinking to themselves, "This will be an excellent name for a future theme park-like attraction right on this spot involving audio-animatronics depictions of horse poo and writhing bedsheets." The other Vikings agreed, and Jorvik very rapidly grew into a great pile of burnt kitchen utensils waiting for English archaeologists to dig up so they could sell plastic replicas of them for £7 each in the gift shop.

We were nearly too late to do the Jorvik Theme-Park-Like Attraction Experience, which irritated Jim, but fortunately we arrived just in time. And I must say our experience in York would not have been the same without it.

Jorvik begins, like any other good Theme-Park-Like Attraction, in a totally unrelated coffee shop. This is followed by a thrilling motion simulator ride whose doors have been slathered with big, red warning labels informing you that if you are pregnant or might possibly be pregnant or have back problems or get really queasy on thrilling motion simulators you might want to skip it. You might expect, from these signs, that this motion simulator will be doing some vigorous tilting and hurtling backwards and forwards, as opposed to some vigorous vibrating. But I didn't let this ruin the experience for me. I let other things do that.

The purpose of the Vibration Simulator was to replicate the experience of travelling back through time, decade at a time, and then century at a time after the decades all start looking the same, with these two people constantly morphing costumes and then pausing to look at each other as if to say, "Maybe someday we will get a job that will allow us to maintain a sense of shame." But, unfortunately for the rider (you should probably skip over to the next paragraph if you don't want me to spoil the exciting, thrilling twist at the end of the ride), you MISS THE DESTINATION YEAR BY WELL OVER A HUNDRED YEARS. This is extremely unfortunate, because it means you have to walk through a tunnel before boarding the convenient time-capsules shaped like ride vehicles to take you back to the appropriate time period, that being thirty minutes before you even got on Jorvik so you'll be smart and do something else.

Actually, I kind of enjoyed Jorvik, come to think of it. In what other Theme-Park-Like Attraction can you actually see the sights, hear the sensual grunting, and smell the manure of the ancient Vikings? Where else can you purchase an ancient Viking coin pounded on an ancient Viking anvil by an actual jaded employee dressed as an ancient Viking with a nametag? The answer is: nowhere else, and may God grant that it stay that way.

Fortunately for those of us on our trip who only spoke Cantonese, the Jorvik Overly Convenient Time Capsules come equipped with a variety of language buttons, so that you can hear important information about the Vikings in any language you wish, plus an English version designed especially for children, often blaring all simultaneously, because college students enjoy pushing buttons. Here is an example of the monologue presented at Jorvik:

ENGLISH - "By 967 AD, the Vikings were often having animatronic sex."

SPANISH - "Hasta 967 AD, los Vikings fueron a menudo tenido el sexo animatronico."

ENGLISH FOR KIDS - "By 967 AD, the Vikings were certainly NOT doing anything inappropriate, so please stare at your sneakers until further notice."

But York is a lot more than a Theme-Park-Like Attraction. It is also a lot of fudge shops. I discovered that some girls would, under the influence of the chocolate smell, purchase way more fudge than they could possibly eat in thirty seconds, so many were only too happy to let me have a bite or four of their delicious Yorkian fudge.

York is actually a very pretty town, with many old streets called "shambles" that are actually not falling apart. The town is full of many fun things to see and do, and also Jorvik. York is also the town where I got to have an adventure with Shelby "I Am William Wallace" Beamon, who decided that it would be just a whole lot of fun to run up the hill to the big tower and yell "I Am William Wallace!" because, back in the day, William Wallace sacked some English city that might as well have been York, at least, according to the movie Braveheart, which is definitive. Shelby is very limber and can ascend giant, random hills without falling and dying of an asthma attack. Certain other people, such as me, can't. So I decided it would be a really good idea to also climb the hill, whereupon I discovered why I normally don't do such things (hint: it involves mangled, gasping noises). Fortunately, there were people down below shouting encouragement. to Shelby, who had already made it to the top and was shouting "I Am William Wallace" in plain disregard of the facts, while I was playing the role of "Scotsman #4 Who Dies in Combat." Little did I realize that the tourbus was right over there, and everybody else was on it waiting for us, and they had seen the whole thing, and Jim (this will really come as a shock) was getting irritated.

York was our last leg of the trip. This was good, because this trip had been a real centipede (HAR!). So we arrived in London, said a fond farewell to Jim, and then opened the door to our new home away from a home, which promptly set off a 50-decibel alarm.

Next Up: "Life in London on £85,605,504 a Day!"

* Or, as Emperor Julius Caesar put it in his memoirs, An Account of My Pointless Excursions to Avoid Getting Assassinated Later On, "I came, I left, I stopped mattering."