Spring Break and York

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So it's officially Spring Break here in Scotland which means 4 glorious weeks of fun and relaxation. I do have exams in a month or so but classes are done, papers are done, no grades are in but hey who cares it's spring time in Scotland! But it's still cold and rainy and seems very not spring like besides the millions of daffodils which cover everything. Literally they're everywhere, every park and hill has them, even the hill and rocks on the castle as covered with yellow. I'm not too sure how the flowers decided it was time to bloom when it's still freezing but maybe it's a "now or never" type of situation. In a country where it's always between 40 and 50 degrees I suppose you'll take what you can get. I received some wonderful packages this past week as well. Despite being woken up by the cleaning lady on two different occasions, it was still worth it! I got an Easter basket from my mom which was full of goodies which everyone wanted and peeps which only I wanted. And I got a package from my sisters! It was great, a bid day shirt, m&ms and gummy bears, and HOME MADE COOKIES! I almost died with excitement! Plus lots of wonderful cards that make me miss everyone so much! I also have put my time off to good use, I found a place to live for the summer and I'm looking to go to Ireland and Prague. Hopefully I'll take the ferry to Ireland and then take a bus down to Cork and see other places in the South and get to see a little bit of England on the way as well.

So I'm sure everyone is just dying to hear about my weekend in York. Well the best way I can describe the place is that it's like a mini, less cool Edinburgh. It has a castle that is tiny, lots of strange museums (a very Edinburgh thing to do), it's very old, it has a wall, and lots of cute shops! I'm not too sure if it was really worth a 3 day visit but it was relaxing and the weather was beautiful. I went with my friends Meg and Diana that I know through my program. We took a train there and we went right along the coast! It was so nice to see countryside and water and there were lots of baby farm animals everywhere! We got to York in the late afternoon and checked into our hostel on Micklegate which is one of the big roads in the town. The first thing we all said when we got off the train was "what is that smell??" Apparently York is the home of some chocolate company and while I don't believe it's still there, there is a distinctive chocolate smell to the place. The whole weekend we were there York smelled great! So we walked around for a while and saw the Minster and the shambles (this little tiny medieval street) until it got dark. We had dinner at pizza express (a fancy pizza chain in the UK) and went to a pub. This is where things started to get strange. We all forgot that you can smoke in buildings in England so that was the first annoyance when we went to the pub. Then it was full of very old men and scantily clad older women. While this is a normal occurrence in Edinburgh there was maybe 2 other people in their 20s in the entire bar. It was strange because the majority of the people roaming the streets were young so we concluded that all the young people must look for young bars all night long while the older people take over the town. We went back to the hostel early and hung out in the common room before going to bed. We had a 10 person room but we figured not too many people go to York that it wouldn't be a big deal. There was a Korean mother and daughter there and a young woman from London and then a mysterious bag was on top of one of the bunks. We all went to bed hoping for a good night's rest.

Well that obviously didn't happen. This was the night that the time changed for everywhere in the world besides the US (aka the old date before it was changed a last year or the year before). So People started to come home around 2 but it was really 3. This hostel we were staying in was one of the oldest buildings in York so it was all made of wood and had fake walls put up so that more rooms could be made. Basically if someone whispered across the building you could hear exactly what they were saying. Next door to us was a men's room which was full of a bunch of English guys. Normally I really couldn't care if people are loud, I've lived in dorms for the past few years and I know what it's like. However this was just too much. Like I said, the walls in most of the rooms were fake, just sheet rock or something so it was very loud. So the guys come home and start yelling at each other to go to bed. Then they didn't know what time it was. The "leader" probably asked everyone for 10 minutes what time it was because he didn't believe anyone that it was 3 in the morning. Then he went into a very long monologue about time changes. He also sounded just like Mike Myers but 10,000 times louder than any other person I'd ever heard. Eventually we went over and asked them to please quiet down and they were very nice about it. However they then yelled at each other to stop talking and go to bed as to not disturb the nice American girls next door.

A few minutes after the guys finally settled down the mysterious other roommates showed up. Two very drunk, obnoxious English girls (with the nastiest accent I'd ever heard) who had come from Leeds for the night to party and didn't want to pay for a taxi home when a hostel was cheaper. However the one girl stormed in and turned on the light and lay in her bed yelling at her ex boyfriend to come pick her up. We tried to tell her to take her conversation outside but she ignored us. Then one of the girls that wasn't with me got up and turned off the light. Well then the girl on the phone started screaming that she couldn't see and so we told her to leave again and she said that she would if she could see. Then I turned on the light and she said it was so bright that it hurt her eyes. Eventually her friend came with the hostel people and they made her leave. The best part was the guys next door kept yelling at the girl to stop talking and they couldn't believe how loud she was! Who would have guessed? So finally around 4 we got to sleep just to get up again in about 4 hours.

So the second day in York, Sunday, we saw some of the sights (and smells) of the town. We went to this Viking museum that had mannequins of what York looked like in Viking time and you rode around on this little cart thing. It was pretty funny looking but before we went we were slightly confused as there were signs all over that said things like, warning, if you have a weak stomach and are sensitive to smells do not ride. Come to find out the ride tries to put in back in Viking time by pumping smelly air into the museum so it smells like a medieval town. It was pretty gross but very funny. We then went to see the York castle and the museum of York. The castle was very unimpressive and costs a ton of pounds to get in. So we went to the museum and it was very nice. The museum takes you through different time periods in York from slavery in the 1600's on to present and even had life size reconstructed streets. It was pretty fun. However outside the museum there was some kind of protest going on where people were lying on large tarps in U shapes as people played the drums. We never did find out what they were protesting. We went to a little cafe for lunch and then headed over to the York Minster.

Apparently York Minster is the biggest cathedral in Northern Europe and the only church I've ever been to that charges you just to enter the doors. I realize that York probably isn't the biggest tourist place but honestly there was a price to practically walk down the road in that town. We climbed to the top of the Minster (NOT my favourite part of the trip, I don't really like heights) and people were ringing the bells by hand! That was pretty cool to see, and there were great views from the top. We then walked around inside and saw the different rooms and stuff. There was a service that afternoon so we even got to see the procession and heard the choir! After the Minster we walked around some more (sat out on some benches as we had been walking all day), did a little bit of shopping and then went to dinner at a very nice pub. I had delicious pasta and sausage bake and Meg had beef with Yorkshire pudding! It wasn't pudding at all and was just some fried bread something that wasn't too good but we all had to try it. That night we went back to the hostel and watched some movies with two Canadian girls.

The last day in York we walked around some more (I think we knew the entire place after that) and decided to walk along the wall. You can actually walk right on the top of it and see all the sights of the town. All the houses along it were beautiful and there were great views of the Minster and rivers. Afterwards we went to a very lovely park and sat around and looked at some of the old ruins in the park and watched a guy take pictures of flowers while standing in them when there were large signs everywhere that said not to walk in the flowers. We then went and had possibly the best meal I've ever had in my whole life. As I said before, York is full of chocolate so much so that I bet the streets could be paved in it. We went to Betty's Chocolate Store or something like that which is a very nice restaurant and a chocolate shop! There were giant Chocolate Easter eggs half the size of us (costing 300 pounds!) and tons of pastries. It was packed so it took a while to get food but I had a delicious fancy sandwich with some kind of special cheese and meat (it's been a while, I don't remember what it's called) and then we all had high tea. SO GOOD. Diana and I had banana toffee pancakes are crepes and not American pancakes. Meg had a berry cake. But the tea was outstanding, it was a special York blend and all the tea we had in York was amazing. After lunch we went to the ferris wheel (once again, no heights for me) and then caught the train back home. Overall York was a pretty strange but beautiful place. Maybe it was just our experience that was strange but it was definitely fun!

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Photos

The Ferris Wheel
It's in the most unatractive part of town and the view was terrible apparently.