A Day in York

Sorry for the late post! I've had the pictures for this post ready to go, but I've been lacking the motivation to write the words to string them all together. So here's the post!

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On March 1st Alyssa and I, along with Gaby and her friend Bernie, took a day trip to the neighboring city of York. I actually wanted to attend the university here for their year program, but it just didn't work out with the classes I needed back at my home university.

But what a cute little town this was! It was easy navigating our way to the city center we were headed for. On our way, we got to walk on the city walls:

:(

"Even Guide Dogs???" A good point made by a concerned (or sassy) citizen.

York City Walls

Once we reached the end of the wall, we reached the Ouse River. There was a cute little cafe that had two dogs hanging around. So I had to take some pictures:

Aren't they adorable?

We took more pictures of the Ouse River as we crossed over the bridge leading to the city center:

Once we crossed the river we made a quick stop to the information center to get some suggestions as to what attractions to see in a day visit. One of the suggestions was the York Dungeon, so we made our way there first. On the way to the dungeon, we passed the York Minster (we came back at the end of the day, so keep reading for some pictures later):

After some quick shots, a convenient sign next to the church pointed us in the right direction into the city center:

On our way to the dungeon, we saw so many cute little shops. Now that I think about it, it felt a little bit like walking through Diagon Alley! There were so many cool things to see. Here were some of my favorites:

Look what I found!

Bad dog!

During our walk, we came across a chocolate shop called the York's Sweet Story. Everything in it looked so delicious, but somehow I managed to control myself and just window shop:

Chocolate bar!!!

There was a street performer starting to gather a crowd as we exited the chocolate shop. We stayed to watch, thinking he might be good and/or it would be done fairly quickly. Both were untrue. He dragged out his performance, while making some not-so-funny jokes, and only performed two or three tricks, all of which were not so extraordinary. Let's just say I wish I hadn't stood for that long by the end of it.

Afterwards, we made our way to the York Dungeon, but not before encountering Clifford's Tower, a castle on top of a little hill:

Side note: It was at this point that my camera started to go all crazy. Just shortly before we arrived at Clifford's Tower, I had replaced my exhausted AA batteries with some new ones. Long story short, my camera only likes Duracell batteries. I made a mental note to myself to buy some rechargeable batteries to avoid a similar situation (and to avoid spending an exorbitant amount of money on batteries in the UK. They are so expensive out here!).

Because we didn't want to pay the price for the tour inside the castle, we took our pictures and walked the rest of the way to the York Dungeon:

Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of the front of the building....
But the white lettering says, "Fear is a funny thing."

I don't know what I was expecting out of the tour. Maybe some scary actors popping out at you as you try to make your way out of the dungeon tunnels. Possibly some signs at different locations giving you some historical information about the York Dungeon. However, the actual tour was different than what I had pictured. During the tour there were various locations we were shuffled to with actors trying to tell a story about the history of the dungeons. Or so I think anyway. I couldn't really understand what most of the actors were saying because:

a) I was distracted by their acting  

 or

b) I couldn't understand their accents

I think it was both of these reasons combined for a good amount of the tour. Either way, I had a good experience, although I wouldn't have paid £8.50 for it if I had known what was in store. 

After that we were all starving, so we made our way to Betty's Tea Room, but not before Alyssa and I found a crepe stand! I was so excited, because this was my first crepe experience ever. It was so cool to see how they made them; it made me want to buy the appliances to make them myself. But for now, I'll just have to buy them. Alyssa got a classic Nutella crepe, while I ordered an apple and cinnamon crepe. It felt like I was eating an apple pie. :) And I already know what kind of crepe I'm trying next: Nutella and strawberries!

I can't wait for my next crepe!

With crepes in our bellies to tide us over, we made our way to Betty's Tea Room. Before we found it, though, we got sidetracked--or I got sidetracked--because we came across a Disney Store:

My little castle :)

After dabbling in the Disney Store, we finally made it to Betty's:

Bernie, Gaby, and Alyssa

Almost there!

Our little table

I wonder what the menus for the other seasons are like....

Betty's is a very popular place, so much so that we waited in line for 30-45 minutes just to be seated. But for all the people waiting to have tea time, the line moved fairly quickly. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Gaby, Alyssa and I ordered the Afternoon Tea, despite the £18.50 price tag. When in England, right.....? (I'm pretty sure it's Rome, but.....)

I was so excited when they brought the tea and little finger foods since, even after my crepe, I was still hungry. The food platters had three tiers: working your way from the bottom up there were four sandwiches, jam and scones, and desserts (descriptions of the first two tiers are in the menu picture shown earlier):

Sorry, for some reason the blogger website kept uploading this picture so that the colors of the berries are off. I promise they were normally colored in real life.

The desserts included a pistachio macaron, a fruit tart, and a chocolate dessert with an unknown icing on top. None of us could put our finger on what it tasted like, even though it tasted really familiar. Alyssa and Gaby both said it kind of reminded them of rum, but I don't think I've ever tasted rum before.... If the chocolate dessert hadn't had that interesting icing, it would have been my favorite. With that in mind, my favorite dessert was the fruit tart.

I'm sad to say that even tea time couldn't convert me into a tea drinker, despite all of the milk (and one sugar cube) I put into it to try to mask the bitterness. However, I did finish my whole cup, which I am very proud of:

I did it!

After we finished and paid of our tea experience, we went outside and looked at the different chocolate creations they had in their shop. The talent some people have is just ridiculous!

That gigantic Easter egg in the middle was £250!

One of my favorite Easter eggs on display

After that we did some more wandering around the city center before making our way back to the York Minster Abbey. Here are a couple more snapshots:

I see you!

I could see someone riding this bike around in Southern California.

I'm glad we went back to take another look at the York Minster. The church was so beautiful and grand, especially the inside. We didn't get to fully explore the church, but we did get to hear a bit of a church service as we took a few pictures:

After a long day wandering the city of York (and by this point being chilled to the bone), it was time to call it a day. We passed over the River Ouse one more time as we made our way to the train station:

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Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for a post about my adventures in Brighton and London!