So today, I went to one of York's tourist attractions. I don't have a lot to do besides readings for school, which is nice, so I went on a bit of an excursion into town. Anywho. I went to Jorvik, which is the Viking Centre in York, where you're supposed to be able to meet real, live Vikings in a real historic setting and all that. Fun, right? Good times? Costumed interpreters... Viking history... ya know.
Warning: If you think you might ever go to Jorvik and don't want any potential surprises spoiled, stop here.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Holy crap I am _SO_ unbelievably thankful for what we had at FEP. Should you have attempted to do the conversion, I spent about $14 (Student rate!) to be greeted by a sort of 'mad scientist' figure, who really wasn't all that 'mad' - he was actually quite a nice British chap, an older gentleman, probably retired. We proceeded to go into this 'time machine', (benches in a room with a screen at the front and some fun lighting effects around it) and then to go 'back in time' (think... much tamer version of the Back to the Future ride at Universal Studios) and end up in 975 AD. The door opens, and you're herded down a hallway where you're greeted by... a Jorvik employee in their standard 2005 AD-issue red polo shirt, who seats you in a lovely little roller-coaster-car-type-thing, with speakers in the headrest, and basically you're taken on a 'tour' of the Viking village (in your choice of five languages - just choose from the panel in front of you!). Illusion effectively completely ruined.
It was fairly standard - as you go drifting slowly by in your thoroughly modernized mechanized conveyance, you get to see a leather worker's shop, a wood carver, a blacksmith's (although only the outside), a family home... all populated by... yes... Mannequins. Some even with little automated bits. The poor wood carver was condemned to turn a lathe for all eternity, back and forth, back and forth, never quite getting to actually shape anything... Kinda Sisyphus-esque. I did take a couple of pictures, but without my computer, I have no way of getting them onto this post, I'm afraid.
Perhaps the most intriguing bit of historical interpretation was created by attempting to reproduce the smells of a Viking settlement in 975 AD. Much as I LOVE to smell someone shitting on a 10th century toilet, it certainly didn't make me want to come back to Jorvik at any time in the near future. Nor did the stuffed animals posed in various positions of mid-movement fixity - a cat leaping off of a roof, a dog pissing in a corner. And I wasn't a big fan of the animatronic chickens. Nope. Not at all.
About 10 minutes later, your ride is done. You've passed through the tiny village, and there's nothing left to see. I still haven't seen a live Viking by this point, nor have I been able to communicate with anyone about any of the things I've seen. This entire site is supposedly based on an archaeological excavation that took place in the late 70s and early 80s, so good on them for attempting to bring the past 'to life'... if you can call that life... but I digress.
So the ride is over, you get out, and you're back in the present all of a sudden (not even some strobe lights or sound effects to mark the change! I felt gipped!), and you're herded yet again into a room with modern museum-style exhibits - glass cases and all that - showing some of the actual artifacts from the dig. Labeled? Not really. A case would have maybe a dozen or two items in it, and the only real information to go with it would be a general description... like "Bone. Bone was used to make combs, blahblahblahblah". So you didn't actually know what any of the stuff in the cases was. And was there anyone to ask? Nope. Oh, and periodically, the lights would come up in part of the display case, and you'd see 'someone' (yes, more mannequins) at work with the tools displayed in the rest of the case.
In the next room, I saw my first Viking. 3rd person from the moment you walked in - but how could he be in first when he was surrounded by modern amenities? Granted, you were in a room teaching you how to do Viking crafts, and I should have realized by this point that the target age for this attraction is probably 8-10 years old, but nonetheless, the promise that I was going to meet 'real, live Vikings' was looking more an more like an empty promise, nothing but words.
The next room was a 'be an archaeologist' sort of a room. Again, an 8-10 year old would probably have been fascinated. I, on the other hand, can't be bothered sifting through rubble that other boogery 8-year-old hands have sifted through in order to find the piece of 'bone'. They did have one interesting thing in this room, though - a skeleton, and they had labeled all the wounds and medical information that was available by looking at the bones. I once considered going into forensic anthro, so this was actually really interesting. Poor guy went through a lot - wounds all over the flipping place!
I met my 'next' Viking on the way out. But he seemed so sullen and dull and bored and completely uninterested in his job that I couldn't bring myself to ask the one real question that I had - there's lots of archaeological evidence for shoes - they actually found shoes at the site, but what about clothes? Clothes generally don't survive that long, so I was wondering how they figured out how to clothe all those mannequins. My curiosity will never be sated.
Oy.
But, hey, I bought a mobile phone today, and found the La Senza in town, and set up a bank account, so it wasn't an entire waste of a day. But I could really use those 45 minutes back. *sigh*
Warning: If you think you might ever go to Jorvik and don't want any potential surprises spoiled, stop here.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Holy crap I am _SO_ unbelievably thankful for what we had at FEP. Should you have attempted to do the conversion, I spent about $14 (Student rate!) to be greeted by a sort of 'mad scientist' figure, who really wasn't all that 'mad' - he was actually quite a nice British chap, an older gentleman, probably retired. We proceeded to go into this 'time machine', (benches in a room with a screen at the front and some fun lighting effects around it) and then to go 'back in time' (think... much tamer version of the Back to the Future ride at Universal Studios) and end up in 975 AD. The door opens, and you're herded down a hallway where you're greeted by... a Jorvik employee in their standard 2005 AD-issue red polo shirt, who seats you in a lovely little roller-coaster-car-type-thing, with speakers in the headrest, and basically you're taken on a 'tour' of the Viking village (in your choice of five languages - just choose from the panel in front of you!). Illusion effectively completely ruined.
It was fairly standard - as you go drifting slowly by in your thoroughly modernized mechanized conveyance, you get to see a leather worker's shop, a wood carver, a blacksmith's (although only the outside), a family home... all populated by... yes... Mannequins. Some even with little automated bits. The poor wood carver was condemned to turn a lathe for all eternity, back and forth, back and forth, never quite getting to actually shape anything... Kinda Sisyphus-esque. I did take a couple of pictures, but without my computer, I have no way of getting them onto this post, I'm afraid.
Perhaps the most intriguing bit of historical interpretation was created by attempting to reproduce the smells of a Viking settlement in 975 AD. Much as I LOVE to smell someone shitting on a 10th century toilet, it certainly didn't make me want to come back to Jorvik at any time in the near future. Nor did the stuffed animals posed in various positions of mid-movement fixity - a cat leaping off of a roof, a dog pissing in a corner. And I wasn't a big fan of the animatronic chickens. Nope. Not at all.
About 10 minutes later, your ride is done. You've passed through the tiny village, and there's nothing left to see. I still haven't seen a live Viking by this point, nor have I been able to communicate with anyone about any of the things I've seen. This entire site is supposedly based on an archaeological excavation that took place in the late 70s and early 80s, so good on them for attempting to bring the past 'to life'... if you can call that life... but I digress.
So the ride is over, you get out, and you're back in the present all of a sudden (not even some strobe lights or sound effects to mark the change! I felt gipped!), and you're herded yet again into a room with modern museum-style exhibits - glass cases and all that - showing some of the actual artifacts from the dig. Labeled? Not really. A case would have maybe a dozen or two items in it, and the only real information to go with it would be a general description... like "Bone. Bone was used to make combs, blahblahblahblah". So you didn't actually know what any of the stuff in the cases was. And was there anyone to ask? Nope. Oh, and periodically, the lights would come up in part of the display case, and you'd see 'someone' (yes, more mannequins) at work with the tools displayed in the rest of the case.
In the next room, I saw my first Viking. 3rd person from the moment you walked in - but how could he be in first when he was surrounded by modern amenities? Granted, you were in a room teaching you how to do Viking crafts, and I should have realized by this point that the target age for this attraction is probably 8-10 years old, but nonetheless, the promise that I was going to meet 'real, live Vikings' was looking more an more like an empty promise, nothing but words.
The next room was a 'be an archaeologist' sort of a room. Again, an 8-10 year old would probably have been fascinated. I, on the other hand, can't be bothered sifting through rubble that other boogery 8-year-old hands have sifted through in order to find the piece of 'bone'. They did have one interesting thing in this room, though - a skeleton, and they had labeled all the wounds and medical information that was available by looking at the bones. I once considered going into forensic anthro, so this was actually really interesting. Poor guy went through a lot - wounds all over the flipping place!
I met my 'next' Viking on the way out. But he seemed so sullen and dull and bored and completely uninterested in his job that I couldn't bring myself to ask the one real question that I had - there's lots of archaeological evidence for shoes - they actually found shoes at the site, but what about clothes? Clothes generally don't survive that long, so I was wondering how they figured out how to clothe all those mannequins. My curiosity will never be sated.
Oy.
But, hey, I bought a mobile phone today, and found the La Senza in town, and set up a bank account, so it wasn't an entire waste of a day. But I could really use those 45 minutes back. *sigh*
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