York

Woke up on Saturday and decided to take a quick trip to York. It's not really close by, so we should have done a little more preparation. It turned into a comedy of errors. First, we didn't pre-book tickets or pre-reserve seats. Two MAJOR no-no's. At the ticket counter, we ended up cutting the time short, needing to sign up for a family railpass card so that we wouldn't pay even MORE than we already were without a booking and having to depend on the very kind station attendant to go put a parking sticker on our car. He was so nice to do that for us. We ran over the platform, made the train to the city, whew. got to Kings Cross station in time for our train to York, only discover that the entire train was reserved seating. We were fortunate enough to find some seats that the people didn't get on in London. I was seated with a "hen party" (more on that later) and DA got to sit with the kids most of the way. It's about a 2.5 hr train ride.

We showed up in York and set off. Our impressions?

- there is lots of history there, but...

- basically the entire city is an outdoor mall. Like dozens of High Streets linked together. I've never seen so much shopping in England.

- the York Minster is beautiful, but we were not impressed enough to want to pay the high entrance fee. DA and I looked at the souvenir book and took photos outside. check.

This is how we felt about the York Minster. Notice the thrill on B's face.

- the river ride is nice and relaxing, but you don't see anything!

- the Jorvick Viking centre is interesting, but it smells so bad. I couldn't understand why it was so stinky until they describe the fact that the reason they were able to unearth all the Viking remnants was because they were buried in wet muddy earth, then you understand that they keep the earth in that muddy state. It's the mud that stinks. (you ride an amusement type ride through the excavation site underneath a building to see real Viking stuff).

- The Shambles road is so quaint. The old building so close together. It's just the charming, English look that you always want to find.

- people everywhere. Granted, it was a nice day on a bank holiday weekend, but the town was packed.

- hen parties and stag parties everywhere. This is an English thing that is a sight to behold. The closest US equivalent is a bachelor or bachelorette party, except the English get the whole group to dress up in "fancy" dress where they all look alike. Cheerleaders, french maids, ladies in tank tops and tutus, men in "halloween" type costumes. We rode next to Buzz Lightyear on the train. So silly. they go out on the town and basically have a loud and rowdy party. In one evening I think we saw over 20 parties going on. My kids were wide eyed!

- the most important thing - the last train to London leaves at 8pm. Be sure to check that!!!

We arrived at the train station at 8:40pm thinking that we could catch the "last train" not realizing that we had missed it. The nearest hotel (15 min walk from station) told us the entire town was sold out, so NO ROOM at the Inn! B thought we would be sleeping in the train station. We ended up catching a train to Leeds and got a room there. Luckily, the Boots was open at Leeds station and we could buy a toothbrush. We were so shocked to find a store open. Nearly every store in the country is closed by 5:30!

Today we were looking fresh, wearing all our best from the day before. No hairbrush or anything. Made our way back to London from Leeds. The very nice station attendant in Leeds said we could use our York return tickets from there. We lucked out with the station attendants on this trip, and also scored 4 of the 10 unreserved seats on the entire train. Next time we try a quick day trip, I will reserve a seat and check the schedule. Lesson learned. It was a very memorable way for L to spend his bday!