So yesterday three of my friends and I went to York, which was absolutely amazing! We had to leave at half seven (7:30), so we had a cab coming to pick us up at 7, that way we would have plenty of time to get there and get our tickets and everything. As I came down the stairs I met the security guard and after asking where we were going and what we were doing, he let all of us into the Refectory to get food! It was so nice of him! So we all made sandwiches and Alayna and Christine had coffee before the cab got to the manor. Once we got to the train station and picked up our tickets, Alayna and I got coffee and hot chocolate (respectively) from a Costa stand. Once on the train Chloe got tea and we all ate our sandwiches. The train was nice. It was only the second time I'd ever been on a train and since the first one was a bullet train (in Japan) Chloe said it didn't count. But it was fun and an easy way to get around.
Once getting off the train we started walking towards the city center. Chloe had been there before so she knew where to go and what some things were. There's an old wall (I think Roman? Either that or Norman) that originally went around the whole city (it doesn't now) and you can walk on it, so up we went to do that. It went over the roads too, so besides being really cool that we actually got to walk on something that old, we also got to skip having to wait for traffic lights!
The first thing we did was go to York Minster and have a look around. The Church was open, but there weren't any workers in it, so we must have gotten there sometime after a service and before it officially opened for tourists so we got in for free. It was really neat though. There weren't as many dead people as Westminster, but we still got to see the tombs of a dead king and queen and their son! Also, none of the saint's statues had any heads. This is because during the Reformation they had all of the statue's heads either defaced or taken off because it was seen as idolatry when you prayed to the statue. This was during Henry VII's reign, just to put a reference point on it. So that was really cool to see, because there weren't any signs explaining this and I already knew the significance of it, so I could explain it to everyone else. They were also doing some restoration to the stained glass and stonework, so they had pictures (and some of the glass) laid out with explanations of what was going on in each pane. Which was really helpful because it was hard to make out or understand whats going on. They also had some examples of how the restoration was done with the stones, so it was cool to see how they would go about doing that.
A lot of the day was spent wandering around and going into shops, which was actually a lot of fun, and that's what we started to do after York Minster. First we went into another Cath Kidston store because Chloe wanted to get some fabric that was on sale. Then we went to this cute teddy bear shop that had everything from the cheaper bears and animal to the really expensive handmade ones. They were really nice! Right next store to that was a Peter Rabbit store! I was so excited because I remembered some of that stuff from when I was little. I ended up buying some coasters, each with either a story or a character that I remembered.
After that we walked around a bit more, looking inside a church that I thought was this church that I had researched that was unrestored, which would've been really cool to see, but it wasn't. Then we decided to have a real tea in a pretty famous tea house in York called Betty's. We had to wait a couple of minutes to get seated, but once we did it was definitely worth it. The three of them all had tea and scones, but (seeing as I don't really like tea much) I had hot chocolate, a toasted scone, and a croissant, all of which were absolutely amazing! This was about lunchtime, so it filled us up enough to pretty much last until dinner. Christine and I were tempted to buy some of Betty's chocolate truffles, but we managed to refrain. Everything looked so good though!
After that it was a bit more shopping (I bought my first gift for people back home!) and we walked out to Clifford's Tower, which is this castle (not too big) from Norman times up on top of a big, steep, man-made hill. This cost us 3 pounds, but I think it was worth it to go into a castle that old! We got to go up to the top and walk around, which I thought was really cool because it gave an awesome view of York, even though I wasn't particularly fond of the spiral stairs. That was about the time that my camera decided to die because apparently it didn't charge all the way up like it was supposed to before I left, so the rest of the day's pictures are on other people's cameras, mainly Chloe's. It was really cool to just be on something that old that had so much history.
After that it was off to do some more shopping and find Christine some new shoes! Her boot zipper had completely broken and the boot was currently being held up by a rubber band. Luckily for her, she found some that she liked in the first shop we looked in. I also found a pair of military type boots that I likes (I'd been wanting some but I didn't really like the styles as much in the States as here) and a cheap belt that was on sale that I also needed so I wouldn't have to keep pulling up my pants there. We didn't really have anywhere else we wanted to go, so we just wandered into shops and such, from cute little ones to the more department store or chain ones, passing the time until we needed to go meet our train at 5:25. While doing this, I found a bag that I absolutely loved from an English company, Radley, that's one of those well-made, more expensive lines. They're mark is a little Scotty dog and they put it somewhere on all of their products. The purse is nice and big and on sale. And, once converted into dollars, is the most expensive purse I've ever bought. I think it's worth it though. I love it and it's something that I wouldn't be able to find back home.
Back in the train station, Chloe told us that she had found out that the bridge over the tracks to get to other platforms was the one used in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone when Hagrid gave Harry his ticket! So of course Alayna and I had to take a picture of it (well using Alayna's camera) and pose on it. She was Harry and I was Hagrid, so it made for a really funny photo! We also found out that, for one week in February, the Hogwart's Express is going to be in York! So she's not completely convinced yet, but I'm totally willing to skip a day of classes in order to go see that! Because there'll be other stuff there too, not just the train! Now it's just the convincing on my part.
Once we got back to Grantham we walked into town and had dinner at a pub called Wetherspoons, closer to Chloe's house. The food was really good! And cheap! It was probably one of the best carbonara's I've had and that and my drink cost less than 8 pounds. We all tried different ciders with dinner. Mine was Savannah Dry, a South African cider, and it was really quite good! I got used to the bubbly after a bit.
After dinner we went back to Chloe's and called a cab to come take us back to the manor. While we waited we watched an episode of Miranda, which is a hilarious British comedy.
Next week I'm going to Edinburgh, so look out for a post on that!
I'm glad you had a good time Caitlin!
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