York City Trip

February 16th-17th

If I were able to choose a city to visit again so far, I'd say it's York. It was so far one of the best excursions I've done thus far, and I can already predict it might be one of my favourite.

The day began with me running late. I did not wake up in full health, so I ended up getting an uber to the train station. I ate a granola bar on the ride there, but was really craving a full meal once we arrived. The night before I'd found a really cool pancake restaurant, so I led my friends there, and those who wanted other food split up after we got to the restaurant.

It was really cool looking. It was a dutch pancake house (there were a lot of dutch themed things in York). I got the apple crumble pancake. I didn't realize until later when I looked back at the picture I'd taken that they really laid back on my servings of apple as I don't even think I got even a quarter of an apple. They could have chopped up more even as a garnish. Also the pancake was really a crepe, but was very good. It wasn't ridiculosly priced so I didn't mind it.

We then walked to meet the others. I used the app Emily told me about called Maps.me - however I didn't realize that it really drained one's phone battery. My friends wanted to leave their bags at the luggage storage at the hostel, but I'd packed light so I could carry my stuff with me everywhere so me and one of my friends stayed behind to explore while the others made the 20 minute walk to the hostel. We decided to meet back up at 1:15pm, where the free tour would be held. This was something I'd found while googling free stuff in York.

My friend and I explored the Shambles and the Christmas shops. One of them was a german Christmas shop, and she's Austrian, so I had her translate some of the ornaments for me. Everything was really expensive, but beautiful to look at. We also went to this stuffed animal store that was handmade animals that looked really realistic. They were adorable. I nearly bought one for everyone, but you guys are not worth a 25 pound bush baby. There was also this elephant that we saw at a couple of stores (it's stuffed too - like a plush toy not an actual stuffed animal, as I had to explain to my friends since english is weird like that). Anyways, this elephant would be the perfect present for a small child. You had to be there to hold it. The feeling of it in your arms was comfort. Too bad neither of my siblings are expecting children or any of my friends. It would have been the perfect present. Ah, I miss it even now...

I got a few gifts at some of the tourist shops, however, I avoided buying from the ones that sold the doll below, as this doll is racist and really shouldn't be sold in stores anymore. If you want to look more into the history of this doll, it's called Golliwog. I think the thing that made me more frustrated was that there were more than one store selling it.

Before the tour, I realised my phone was going to die, so we hunted down somewhere with outlets, which was difficult as York was from the Viking and Roman times, and not a lot of the cafes had outlets free to use. I ended up standing near the entrance of a shop, while my friend got a coffee, to charge my phone until it was 30%. Our other group of friends was late to the tour and we were worried as we weren't sure if they were lost or antyhing. To make matters a bit worse, when the tour started the guide moved us to a quieter area. Luckily, our friends were able to figure things out and made it in time for the "Where are you from and how many people am I leading on this tour?" bit. I was the only Canadian, again.

The tour was 2 hours and it was fantastic. We lucked out with the guide, as there's apparently one who has held it for 5 hours before. The guides are all voluntary and I think they do it for fun and for the experience of it. Plus, if you're a history nerd, it's one way to tell people the history of things and actually have them listen to you for once.

It also was great as he took us through the city and across the city walls. There was a lot of history, a lot more Roman history than I had been expecting. The city was also really cool as it's been around a long time, so it had a lot of different types of building from different periods in time.

One part of the tour he didn't show us, but I knew about beforehand, was that Guy Fawkes had been born there (that's how cool this city is, that he didn't have time to do the Guy Fawkes bit). Basically, Guy Fawkes is the guy who tried to blow up the House of Lords in the Gunpowder plot of 1605. Remember, remember the 5th of November. You also might recognize him from the mask, that was definitely popularized from V for Vendetta, the movie and graphic novel. I was able to catch a couple of Guy Fawkes plaques as I was walking around. There were plaques on almost every building. I could have spent my day reading the walls if I wanted to.

We were exhausted after the tour, so we headed to a tea room to get something small (we were planning to have a big dinner later). We got the whole loft to ourselves, which had a fantastic view of the cathedral and some bean bag chairs to lie down on. I got a delicious raspberry and blackberry crumble to eat.

After eating we walked around for a bit, we'd split up while shopping around and some headed to the hostel. We ended up heading there too. We took the long way by the water, and it was worth it.

The hostel was out of the city a bit, but it was the cheapest I could find. It was family friendly too, so we saw some kids in the lobby area as families could book private bunk rooms (which would have been cool when I was a kid to stay at).

All three of us were in the same room, so they only gave us one key (which was annoying, but didn't really matter as we all left together anyway - plus the other three had a key too from when they checked in). We ended up all being in the same room together (that's all 6 of us). I realized the email must've been referring to the fact I'd emailed with a list of girls who had all been apart of the Facebook group I'd created, and they didn't all end up coming. We only had one other in our room with us, and she was from Spain, travelling with her husband (they couldn't stay in a mixed room as the hostel didn't offer mixed rooms). It was a pretty nice hostel for my first experience in one. The bed was comfier than my flat bed. The blankets were nice. The only issues we had was the toilet paper wasn't the best thing to dry our hands with. I'd brought a hand towel for drying my face, so I was at least able to use that (I didn't offer to share, as it was for my face, so I was a bit selfish with that).

After resting up, we ended up taking an uber back to the city centre to get dinner. We really should have booked in advance, as finding a restaurant/pub at 8pm that had space for 6 or two groups of 3, or was still serving food, was tricky. Somehow, we ended up finding this really cool pub that had plenty of room and even some board and card games free to use.

To eat, I got cornish beef and pulled pork hash. This is basically pulled pork, beef, and mashed potatoes mixed together. It came with a double-fried egg, and some surprisingly hot sauce, that looked like ketchup, but was quite the shock to my sinuses when I tried it. Speaking of my sinuses, they were not better. I was a sniffling mess all day, but I forced myself through it. I tried a cider that was pretty good.

After playing some trivia pursuit, shocking each other with our knowledge of things, we walked back to the hostel. It was a really cool walk at night. York has Christmas lights (but like not just for Christmas) strung up, so the city looked beautiful.

Back at the hostel, our roommate was pleased to find out we'd just come back and weren't planning to go out partying as we ended up going to bed and waking up around the same time. She said the night before the girls who had been in the room previously had been quite loud.

Getting ready for bed was also quite the interesting experience. It reminded me of ringette tournaments when we all got ready together and shared like one mirror between a bunch of us.

My nose was stuffed to the brim and I only had dayquil left. It didn't work as well, but I did fall asleep eventually. I woke up a bunch during the night because the blanket was too warm, but without it, it was too cold. A cool thing about out beds was that we had an outlet with a little ledge for our phones and our own personal lights, so had we been leaving individually and didn't want to bother the other hostel guests we could have used those.

The next morning we woke up and got ready just in time to catch the last of breakfast. It was surprisingly good and filling. Checking out was easy too, as we just gave back the room keys and that one key checked out three of us.

My friends all left their bags in the luggage store room and then we walked to the city centre along the river. It was beautiful, and there were many good pups along the way. There were also people out rowing and SUP. We headed to Clifford's tower first, as it was the farthest out and we could then come back the other way.

I was going to go into the tower, but it was 6 pounds, and it didn't look like much. There was also a museum nearby, but again, there were other things I could spend my money on (like good food). It was nice to walk out there to take the cool pictures.

I ended up buying a long cardigan at Primark, while we were there, as I hadn't brought a jacket (it was about 10 degrees on average) and if I was moving I was good, but it was a bit windy and the shirt I was wearing was a crop top (since we were going to the cathedral I wanted to be able to hide that fact as best I could). We didn't go to the viking museum as it was crazy expensive and the line-up was insane. So, say family ever wants to go back to the UK and go to York, I'd be able to do that.

We then went to a cafe before the Cathedral (York Minster) as we had to wait for mass to finish. I wasn't going to go to the Cathedral originally. Then I realized it was a big building and probably had some cool things inside. We ended up buying tickets to see the tower, but those tours are only held at certain times as there's only one way up and down that has zero room for people to be coming up and down at the same time.

I was thankful for touring the cathedral, we were allowed to take pictures, so I took many. There was this one room that had so many outlets in it that you could tell was meant to let guests charge their phones. To think the other day I struggled to charge my phone, and then I walk into this church and they have them EVERYWHERE. We also used the bathroom and they had random old church stuff in the bathroom. There was even a private bathroom that had the stone walls in it.

Then, it came time for the tower. 275 steps. One thing I did not realize was just how narrow and steep those steps would be. Going up I panicked a bit as I knew going down was going to be scary. You see I do not have a fear of heights, but going down the stairs. People die falling face first all the time, so you can see why it scares me.

Going down I did it one step at a time, gripping onto the banister and wall beside me. My arms actually ached after as I think I put a lot of my weight onto them. The stairs barely fit my small 6.5 feet, so you can just imagine why I was a bit terrified. There were people behind me, but I don't think they minded my slow pace, as I was at least constantly moving. I did take quite the pause when the sections where you had to go about 5 steps without a railing happened. Honestly, I nearly did the butt scoot down the stairs. My legs were not holding me well because of my nerves. To try to get my mind off of what I was doing I went over a crap load of nursery rhymes. However London Bridges falling down and other rhymes kept reminding me of the fact that I could fall. I made it though and rushed to a bench to sit down before my legs gave way. I wasn't tired, but I had the worst case of shaky leg syndrome. It felt like I had just gotten onto dry land after spending years on a boat. Or, if you haven't skated before, trying to balance.

At the cathedral gift shop, I got Tim's gift, which I was surprised to find they sold. There were also these rubber ducks that were either vikings, bishops, and romans. It was a bit weird and cute at the same time. They also sold a lot of Scottish items everywhere.

After the cathedral, my friends headed back to the hostel to get their bags and I stayed in the area and explored the shops, which was a lot of fun and also gave me a chance to get my legs working again. I went back to the Shambles, which was where the set designers for Harry Potter got the inspiration for Diagon Alley. They had a lot of cool stores there I went into. They didn't have just Harry Potter fandom stuff, they had other things like Mario, GoT, and Marvel. It was pretty cool to explore. I also looked at some of the clothing boutiques, but nothing really caught my eye. I wanted to get a nice dress or t-shirt to wear for QI.

One thing I did splurge on was this lamb. It was 9 pounds, a stuffy I did not need, but wanted, but worth it for the name of the company (plus it's handmade).

I then met back up with my friends at the park by the St Mary's Abbey ruins. We got to see the sun begin to set and rest our legs.

We booked a reservation for dinner this time, even though we ended up not really needing it as it wasn't as busy at 5pm. The place we went to was very fancy, but served decent priced food. I had a burger as I knew I wouldn't be having a burger for a while (it'll be peanut butter sandys for me).

We then had just enough time to walk back to the train station. There was a person sitting in my seat when I arrived and took forever to move to let me in. I struggled to get comfy, but eventually did. Because the train was heading in a backwards direction, my forward facing seat was really a backward seat. However, since the light was on in the train and it was dark outside you couldn't really see outside. I did get one good shot of the Durham cathedral as we drove by.

Also, I should mention about how on the way to York we had our passports checked before reaching Durham (which hadn't happened before), so we were lucky the last time we went. Yet, on the way back from York the guy skipped me when checking tickets. I guess he didn't think I was worth the time to check?

When we arrived in Newcastle, we were too tired to make the half-hour walk back to our flats. So, I got an uber for the three of us that live in the same area. Now I'm home, exhausted, and glad I don't have any classes on Monday.

Here's my next video of pictures. I hope you enjoy as much as the last one.

Oh, and I should mention the good news. I came back feeling a bit bad for spending money in York, but I opened an email from my home University saying they added more money to the study abroad bursary the school had awarded me with, so long as I become a global ambassador. I was planning on doing that anyway. Basically, I got $500 more dollars I was not expecting and very much needed to help take off more of the stress of buying food. It's good this trip is helping more with my public speaking skills as I believe I'm going to have to go make a few speeches.