York- August 1

NOTE: this is just a temporary post without pictures! be sure to check all my other posts from the north trip, they're the ones with dates! enjoy and i will add pics when I can! 

Hello from York!

Today we left our hostel at 9 o’clock after having another good breakfast. It was sad to leave the Lake District! It truly is a beautiful place and I miss feeling at home L. We had a long bus ride to York! I am surprised at how big this city is. I guess its like 250,000 people. It’s weird because the only city I only really think about in England is London.

Okay well anyways our first attraction was this thing called Jorvik! (pronounced your-vick) A lot like the Roman attractions in London, it’s built on top of Viking ruins they found in the 1970s. There is a glass floor so you can see exactly what they found, which is pretty cool. It was neat to see Viking stuff because you don’t see any of that in London. It makes me want to visit Norway soooo bad! But this is where it got weird. The main part of the Jorvik experience is a ride! I guess people love it cause this place had a HUGE line and it was not cheap! But so this ride…  it’s kind of operated like Peter Pan in Disneyland. Your little car is attached to a track above you and you kind of float along the scenery below/around you. The scenery in this case is the reconstruction of a Viking village, complete with talking animatronics (they speak Norwegian or Danish or something, then the lady computer voice translates for you), smells, sounds, animals… it’s wild. The smells are totally disgusting. So you go through houses, a market, the shore complete with fisherman… and get this. The last scene is a Viking man using the latrine. I could not believe it! Complete with sound effects and some moss in his hand to clean up when he is done! Oh my gosh! It was crazy!!! Hahahaha. They had a funny gift shop after and I got a scratch and sniff postcard for my family so yeah. Get excited for that guys. Also they have ‘real vikings’ dressed up so I got a picture with them.

After that we had some free time to get lunch. Me and Chelsea went to this place called the Danish kitchen which we thought would be good. It was a total dud! Probably the first bad luck we’ve had with food this trip but oh well. It was funny.. it kind of reminded me of Angie’s with the really random decorations and whatnot. But anyways. I ended up getting some yogurt and granola at a Boots because I was still hungry after that experience. But we still had some free time so we decided to explore a little more. We had no idea what we were doing but we ended up on the most famous street, the Shambles! It is so cool! It dates back to midevil times. It is super narrow and the buildings are all really cool looking and saggy. Later we found out this is what Diagon Alley was modeled after! Yay for Harry Potter references J. York is known for it’s candy so we went in some of those shops (didn’t get anything).. but Chelsea did get some chocolates and they were dang good. They had a chocolate factory museum thing that we were gonna do but everything closes too freaking early.

So then it was time to meet up to go the York Minster. So this is the York Cathedral! It is HUGE which I was not expecting. I always thought Westminster Abbey was the biggest by a lot, but it’s actually this place. It is super old too! It dates back to the 1200s and before that was the site for Roman and Anglo Saxon and all sorts of stuff. It was interesting to learn that Constantine the Emperor of Rome was actually crowned in York! How crazy is that? You’d think all that stuff was only for legit Romans from Italy. But there were so many cool stories attached to cathedral. That’s why I like guided tours of them. This one was interesting because It’s roofs were actually wooden, but plastered then painted to look like stone. I guess this was because they were scared of roofs collapsing.. but of course this meant that the roof has caught on fire 3 or 4 times. But other than that everything is original! Including the stained glass, which is a big deal. During the end of our tour the choir started practicing for evensong so it was cool to be walking around and hear the amazing acoustics at work.

After that we had more free time so we wandered and shopped till everything closed at 6. I hate how early everything closes here!! But I found a cool dress store and got a dress… then I was bad and went to Top Shop which is totally in London but I got some good stuff. Then it was time for dinner. We really needed to make up for lunch so I was being especially picky. We totally nailed it, I wont lie. We ate in this legit old house that the hostess said was like 800 years old.. it definitely looked the part. It was SO cool. And it had a lot of traditional stuff! Ah I loved it! Me Chelsea and Taylor were all freaking out cause it was so cool. I got a butternut squash risotto and it was amazing. So yummy. That was probably the highlight of my day!

Now we are back at our hotel! It is outside of the town centre, which is also kind of cool to explain. So the midevil wall is still standing and that surrounds the ‘city’ that has all the good shopping and stuff. There are no coaches allowed in there and it’s pretty cool. We are a few blocks outside of it at a place called the Ibis Hotel. It’s nice! Me and Chelsea have our own room which is really nice. We watched some Olympics in our room and now we’re watching Anastasia on her iPad. I have to say it’s really funny to watch the Olympics from a British channel and not an American channel. They focus on what GB is good at.. which isn’t a lot haha. They are really making a fuss over that guy that just won the Tour De France and the time trial today so that is cool. But it’s also cool to see America dominate.. like today I got to see Phelps and Lochte so that was cool. They call them the ‘big boys’ over here and everyone knows they are untouchable. It’s fun!

Tomorrow we head to Edinburg! I am excited! Talk to you later J