After the horrible experience from LD, I was wary of travelling by train. However, one day later, I found myself on a train once again, heading up north to York to visit a friend. Surprisingly, the further up I went, the better the weather became. Soon, all that was left of the bad weather was drizzle with the sun peeping out from behind the clouds, occasionally. Unfortunately, for the passengers heading to Manchester airport, they were not so lucky as the track was flooded. From Manchester Piccadilly, I changed to another train to York.
At about 1.30pm, I arrived in a city I know nothing about (except that a friend did some charity work there). Very quickly, I got on the no. 10 bus (GBP1), heading towards the city centre. My stop was on Lawrence Street, close to Nicholas Street where my friend's place is. She came to pick me up from the stop and we left my bag in her house before heading out for lunch.
The walk to the city centre took about 10 - 15 minutes. The first sight to greet me was the city wall at Walmgate. We took a stroll on the wall (feels like Great Wall of China but of course this is just a miniature in comparison) and got down at another gate. We walked and walked and walked, aimlessly. There wasn't really much time for me to visit any of the attractions as most of them closed at around 5pm. The city was bustling with excitement - the traditional folk dance festival was on during this weekend. We passed by two groups of dancers, performing in two separate squares.
As none of us were really hungry, we just bought a steak pie from one of the sandwich shop. More time was spent on strolling around the city before we finally decided to stop for dinner at Betty's tea room, the oldest tea room in York (probably a hundred years old or so). The tea room was certainly popular as the crowd never seemed to cease. We had to queue up to get into the tea room. 15 minutes later, we were taken to our table. I ordered Yorkshire sausages and ice-cream milkshake (banana flavour) while my friend got the salmon dish of the day and tea. The food was pretty good but my favourite was really the ice-cream milkshake. Although we went in for dinner pretty early, we only left at past 8pm due to the long wait for the food. Can't be helped given the crowd.
Our final stop for the day was the University of York. Not that it was my intention to visit the campus, rather I required the use of a PC and internet to fulfill my promise to a friend to read her dissertation. We spent more than an hour there before heading back home.
The following day was a hectic day. Our original plan was to visit the York Maze. Unfortunately, the previous day was the final opening day of the year. So, I settled for the Clifford's Tower, Castle Museum and York Minster. My favourite place had to be the Castle Museum. Photography was allowed. Hence, I was able to take photos of the old Victorian street, where we got to experience day and night (with sound of raindrops) and walked into some of the stores (I should mention at this point that the actors here did a better job than the chit-chatting actors in Shakespeare's birthplace).
Once again, we paid a visit to Betty's tea room (I know I am a bit crazy about that place) to have tea. While my friend got the afternoon tea set (tea + scones), I opted for the Fat Rascal (house specialty - scones with raisins, nuts and cherries) and hot chocolate with cream. The meal cost me almost GBP7 (imagine that!). Due to the heaviness of the meal, both of us were unable to have dinner that day. We reached home rather early today and spent the night watching the "Big Bang Theory".
On my last day in York, we visited Jorvik, a viking centre. First, we had to get into a "time machine" where we attempted to go back to the year 866 till the machine went into the error and started shaking violently (actually not that violent, more like shaking thru and fro). Then, we got into a "car" which took us around the viking village. The faces of the mannequins in the village were all reconstructed based on the skulls found in this village (i.e. York). I thought the place was truly interesting. The only drawback was that no photography allowed.
By the time we left Jorvik, we still had another 2 hours to kill. So, we headed towards the Treasurer's house. And then, it happened. A simple window-shopping became a guilt trip. I bought stuffs which will be of no use in the immediate future. Great...whatever. We spent so much time shopping that we only had enough time to take lunch at La Vecchia, an Italian restaurant with a courtyard view of the Minster. We finished our meal at around 1pm and had to rush to the train station to catch my train at 1.25pm. Thankfully, we were on time. I bid my friend farewell, not knowing when will we meet again. It was a truly good trip except for a few hiccups.
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