Blogs from York, North Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom, Europe

Well, after a long abscence, campervan stories continues. I awoke very early the following morning after a tortured night of indecision. In the small hours of the morning the great debate raged in my head - should I leave my cosy bed and tent for the toilet, or could I manage? First light came as a great relief and after checking nobody was about I made a dash, in my pyjamas, looking like the monster from the tomb (don't ask how I know I looked like this, I just do) for the small camp toilet building. As I rounded the corner to salvation - I really was desperate - I encountered a whole pile of blokes with fishing gear waiting for the fishing lake to open. So, I exchanged the usual pleasantries, were they fishing today, ... read more

Sorry i haven't written much lately or anything at all. As you can see from the title i have been wasting all of my creativity on my classes. But Just to quickly try to fill you in. I love England. At least most things, some things I still am trying to get used to (like crisps that come in very small bags very much unlike our extra-extra large crisp bags)(and the bags even say they are for sharing... as if). Classes are very lax and i have been finding i have more free time then i am normally used to so i have started reading for fun (but i also read a whole lot for classes)... also i got to see the beautiful and amazing english countryside and i definitely had a flash back to elizabeth ... read more

Dear Blog Readers, I've had one of the most amazing weeks of my life and decided it was definitely blog worthy. I will try and loosely relate them to travelling so that the diehard travelblog readers aren't too disappointed! After a couple of months of practicing with my excellent driving instructor Ros (please get in contact if you want her details - highly recommended!) and going out with my nerves-of-steel Mum have been very effective. My test wasn't great. In fact, I my reverse around a corner was so dire that I actually assumed I'd failed within the first two minutes. Maybe it was the lack of nerves after that which made me pass! So I now hold a shiny new (manly) pink driving license which opens up the opportunities when travelling abroad. My instructor was ... read more

I am finally getting used to this place and tomorrow morning I am off to a new city. I have to go through London and change trains and by tomorrow night I will be in Canterbury. This morning I went to the Castle Museum, it was an interesting museum. There was a mish-mash of items and rooms ranging from a victorian street to an exhibit of the 60’s and even a dungeon. It was very informative though which was nice and I took quite a lot of pictures, of various signs as well as the exhibitions. Unfortunately I ran out of space on my SD card so I had to start going through and deleting old pictures, which takes a while. In the afternoon I went to the Railway Museum which was also really quite interesting. ... read more

Woke up early this morning to snow! There was not much and by the time I went outside to go to the train station it was mostly slush on the ground. I spent the morning on the train and arrived in York around 12:45 in the afternoon. Check-in time was not until 2 p.m. so I went for a bit of a walk to familiarize myself with the town. My bag got quite heavy so I went back to the hostel and I was able to check in a bit early. The Ace Hostel (where I am staying) is a Georgian townhouse from 1752. Instead of packing my large suitcase I managed to condense everything I needed for 10 days into a large red carpet bag, a medium shoulder bag that I got in Paris and ... read more

Happy Thanksgiving! This year, I've told the story of the First Thanksgiving more times than I've told it in the rest of my life combined, I think. At least since I was about 8. I can't say I miss the turkey all that much, but it was still strange to go to class, especially since Thursday is the longest day for us. My coursemates made me a card! It is beautiful and hand made, with Thanksgiving and general-American themed pictures glued all over it (my personal favorites are Captain America and the cat and dog in First Thanksgiving costumes) and everyone signed it! Apparently it was a complicated and time-consuming endeavor, so thank you guys so much. I don't think I can explain how much it meant to me. Our US/UK Mix-Up of the week happened ... read more

“Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by our sun of York” - Shakespeare, Richard III For a summer that was neither glorious nor particularly ridden with golden rays, it has, in many ways, been kind to us. Barring a bit of rain in Buxton, a persistently wet afternoon in the Lake District and a washout of a weekend in Edinburgh (but then it is Scotland, rain is a fact of life up there), we’ve been pretty lucky. In the intervening months since we returned from the Lakes, there has been something of a mini-heat wave which I failed to take advantage of through a lack of organisational skills. By the time I finally got around to arranging York, summer was well and truly over. Or at least it should have been. Only ... read more