my love for York

We just got back from a little day trip to York.  We had some pretty funny/great experiences, but none would top my fascination with the "fortress" walls that you could walk on from one part of the city to the other.  I think there were 4 in all, and we walked 3 of them.  It was awesome.

We got there and we had lunch in this cool plaza in the center of town, which had a great view over the fountain of the York Minster in the background...

Then we headed over to the Minster for a tour.  We stayed for 30 minutes of the 1.5 hour tour (we had a lot to cram in!)...but this was really cool.  These statues were kind of small, over the door at the back of the cathedral.  They're headless, and they're supposed to be people signaling to others with fans.

This says "Christ."

And this is on the other side of the door.  It says "Is Here."  I thought these were the most interesting things I saw in the Minster.  The most interesting thing I learned: one of the huge panes of stained glass is cleaned every 100 years.  Dust...gross.

Afterwards we went outside to take gobs of pictures!

We then headed on to the Quilt Museum.  No you didn't read that wrong, it was I who wanted to go.  I mean we had a York Pass where we paid this set fee, I thought we should see EVERYTHING we could cram in there, this included.  You couldn't take pictures inside, but we sneaked a few. 

Here's me with "Walter" the sheep.  This was on the demonstration table showing how the fabrics and material make up the quilt.

After the hilarious experience at the Quilt Museum, we thought we'd go see something more worth our time.  So we headed over to the Roman Bath Museum.  Even though we're going to Bath here in a few weeks when Janelle's mom comes to visit, we thought this still must be interesting.  There's a lot of Roman history around England - I am not sure why but before I leave I WILL know more about this history!!!  

On the way to the museum we went through the markets, where all this food was everywhere.  This is a big table with loads of candy and fudge.  Every kid's, or Janelle's, dream... ;)

I couldn't bring myself to get anything (Mimi Bourne's fudge is the best - why bother).

Once we got to the Roman Bath Museum, we were a little skeptical.  It was under a pub, and didn't seem very "museum" like to me.  But we went in, and sure enough, it wasn't.  Here's the ONLY thing in that whole room that was worth anything.  It's Roman Bath ruins.  The entire museum was formed around this one thing.  Apparently in the early 1900s there was a fire in the pub, so the owner wanted to build a cellar underneath.  Well when he started digging he found the bath, and now there's a museum featuring it...and a lot of costumes.  It was a joke.  Janelle and I felt like the only normal people in there - everyone was taking it seriously, and we were laughing and taking loads of pictures of weird things!!

After the museum we headed to grab some dinner and then go to see a play: 42nd street.  Neither one of us had seen it, and it was only 5 pounds for nose-bleed seats, so we thought we'd do it!  On the way, we had our first wall-walk experience.

At each place you could enter, was one of these huge tower type things...

I was IN LOVE with these walls.  These videos capture my first experience on the walls, and the pure excitement that I felt when going on them.  Janelle has been trying to catch me in the act of goofy things I do - and she finally succeeded.  But I LOVED the walls.  My heart smiles still thinking about them (and I don't know why!!)

I was trying to "shoot" the enemy as if I was back in the time period when these things were in use.  But I kept getting embarrassed people would see me if they passed me...so I had to sneak in some acting on these walls.

Also on the way we passed a famous York tea called Betty's.  We thought it would be funny to get a picture of this in honor of my mom's birthday (notice the WE, not just me!).  We especially liked the "Established in 1919 part."  Happy birthday mom (even though it's not your 90th birthday)!

Before the show we stopped in a bookstore, which we frequently do, and I had to capture Janelle in her element.  All I did was walk in to see if they had a certain book - and it never fails, I will find her in the children's section!

Then we got to the theater and if we sat back in our seats we couldn't even see the stage.  We were above where they did the lights, and we were leaning over the whole time. 

At intermission I looked over at Janelle to ask her what the heck was going on (because even though I was seeing everything, the plot was so weird I couldn't figure it out)...before I could, she asked me if it was over.  Honestly, I thought the same thing.  But it wasn't.  The lady next to us asked us how the actors accents were compared to the real deal (New York & Texas).  Unfortunately I had to tell her they were not very good - haha.  It was too funny!

The next day we set out to find Clifford's Tower.  On the way we walked on some more awesome walls.

Clifford's Tower was the coolest thing ever!  I can't describe it really...

And then on the inside we climbed up to the top and took pictures inside and of the city.

And when we were on top we decided we should take turns walking to the 2nd level and take pictures of each other...

Afterwards we went on our boat tour of the city.  Lucky for us, it fit right in with the majority of our other sites.  We got on the boat, went MAYBE 1/4 of a mile seeing the city, then were cruising with brush on either side of us for another 1/4 of a mile before we turned around.  We then went BACK through where we had already been, went 1/4 of a mile in the other direction seeing that side of the city, 1/4 of a mile in shrub, and turned around.  The most hilarious thing I have ever experienced...and the information given was not anything worth the typical 7 pounds people were paying to do this thing.  Thankfully, we had our York Pass.  Here's the best view we had all trip...

Then I decided, we should just take pictures of ourselves...

Last stop was the York Castle Museum.  Inside was a bunch of random things, such as an exhibit on different eras and what a typical room would look like, a cleaning exhibit showing us all the different vacuums since it's conception, a death exhibit showing us coffins since the beginning of time, and so forth.  This is one of the rooms we walked through that was supposed to be like the olden days.  It was my favorite part of the whole thing so I took a picture.  Then the lights went out and thunder was "playing" over the speakers; it was humorous since there's a lot of rain in England, but I've never heard a thunderstorm!!  

And finally we went to this little tea place to get coffee and cake before we headed out!!

You have officially been informed, in the most detailed manner, of our trip to York.  Hope you enjoyed it!!  We did!

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