Well, that took much longer than I thought it would. I guess I got caught up in School Adventures and Permanently Ruining My Circadian Rhythm.
Day III in York started off excitingly enough, with a bus trip to the city and much regret over the lack of double-decker busses. There’s a handful that run the unibus line (which is the cheap busses from the University to City Centre) but we didn’t successfully catch one during our stay. Fun fact: I’ve only managed to get a double-decker bus twice since I got here.
We successfully found the shortest street in York, the hilariously named Whip Ma Whop Ma Gate. It’s about 50 feet long and there’s a church or something there. While we were giggling over the street name and taking pictures, we were approached by The Dreadlocks Man. A Yorkshire native (I never did ask Heather what she thought about that accent), he cheerfully informed us that nobody is particularly sure why the street has such a ridiculous name, and he proposed two theories: either “whip ma whop ma” somehow translates to “really short street,” or it’s where all the menfolk used to bring their wives when their wives needed a beating.
We would meet Dreadlocks Man again about five or ten minutes later when we were investigating the menu at one of the many pasty shops in York. He informed us that there was a shop selling cheese on toast for £5 and that he’d never go there again, and it was rather hilarious. We arrived at the conclusion that he thought we were rather attractive American tourists and felt it necessary to warn us against overpriced grilled cheese.
After driving the poor cashiers at the pasty shop insane by our indecisiveness (the cute cashier said “I can’t handle you two, the suspense is killing me) and Heather receiving a rather unhelpful answer as to what a “bap” was (according to the less cute cashier, “a bap is a bap.”), we had a thoroughly delicious brunch of a breakfast bap and a steak pasty. Heather’s breakfast bap was pretty much the most awesome thing on the planet and I have since returned to that pasty shop to get them for myself. And they’re incredibly well-priced.
Then we went to the Minster, which was probably the highlight of our York trip. I’m not even kidding. It easily blew Heather’s mind — I’m 98% sure she’s never seen anything like it before. I mean, we don’t have anything like York Minster in the States. I mean, it has foundations built by ancient Romans! Romans! It was also awesome that I got free admission with my University of York ID, and Heather got reduced student prices. We walked all over the Minster, ogling all the gorgeous stained glass (Heather was particularly enamoured with the heart-shaped stained glass window, known as the Heart of Yorkshire) and the sheer size of the place, and we wandered down into the underground foundation bits where there’s ancient Roman constructions and bits of the old Norman cathedral and all sorts of stoneworking. Heather even went into the crypts, which was a major deal for her because she is Not OK with dead people.
Also, we had a good laugh at the bizarrely provocative statuary of dead religious dudes.
And the highlight was also the first instance of Anne Making Heather Climb EVERYTHING. We paid to climb the bell tower, which is about 60m high. There was a rather intense trek up steep spiral staircases, and I’m pretty sure Heather was completely amazed by the view from the halfway point. When we got to the top, I think her head exploded. I mean, after how gorgeous the interior was, the view from the top was amazing. The weather wasn’t the greatest — it was overcast and windy — but it was still completely brilliant. And one of the signs on the side pointed the direction to Edinburgh, which was rather exciting since that was the next leg of our awesome adventure. We ran around the top like mad people, pointing out all of the landmarks and delighting in the sheer Englishness of the surrounding city. I mean, there’s just something so adorable and quaint and English about all the clustered red rooftops and tiny little yards and flats sandwiched up against flats.
We also engaged in some dubious activities in the Minster, because my dorm was out of toilet paper. Yes, we took toilet paper from the church. I am unrepentant, and I will say that holy toilet paper is awesome. I think the guys back at the flat were a little amazed at us, though.
After the Minster, we were so utterly blown away that we couldn’t possibly think of what else we were going to do. Heather suggested the Railway Museum, which had been recommended to her and was, most importantly, free. It was a long trek out to the museum, though, but it was along the river so it wasn’t all bad.
Unfortunately, the museum was a little disappointing. Of course, we should have suspected that we wouldn’t be particularly pleased with it, since neither of us is particularly entertained by trains. We did watch a roundabout go, which was vaguely interesting, and we took a breather in a Japanese high speed train car. Oh, and we watched some videos about trains that were hilarious in their ridiculousness.
Then we got lost in the land of Royal Train Cars and couldn’t figure out how to leave, which was horrifying. By this point we were starting to get hungry and we didn’t want to pay for overpriced museum food.
Eventually we did figure out how to leave (it took some backtracking) and we ended up going to Pizza Hut for dinner. I mean, how can you go wrong with pizza? Everyone loves pizza! And we knew Pizza Hut wouldn’t be too expensive for us, because it’s a major pizza chain.
We didn’t realise that Pizza Hut, in England, is a proper sit-down restaurant.
Yeah. Seriously.
We pretty much walked into the place and totally bypassed the maitre’d, because seriously. Why would there be a maitre’d in a Pizza Hut? The servers were all confused by this when we just sat down somewhere. It was probably a major faux pas somehow.
Nobody got any beer, which was probably a bad idea in a pizza place, but beer is highly overpriced everywhere and I didn’t want to get something if Heather wasn’t drinking. As I might have mentioned, she’s not much of a beer person. I don’t really care for drinking alone, and we’d have plenty of opportunity later.
Anyway, we had a very yummy pizza — it was the first time I’d had a proper pizza since I got here! It’s ridiculous how much I miss things like pizza. I ate more slices of pizza than I ever do. It was ridiculous. At least I can get an approximation of a hamburger at the local McDonald’s. We brought the leftovers home for the boys, since we were going to be leaving the next day.
We had a relatively early night because we had a rather early train in the morning. Because we were off to EDINBURGH!
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