Rapher's Log - Stardate 05/25/16

Jun 12, 2016 14:40

Contrary to the date I'd originally written on my journal, which was 05/24/16. Apparently, I've been borrowing the TARDIS and doing some time travelling. Anyway, travel day, returning to London. Hopefully the train journey would be less stressful than the arrival in York had been...



The plan today was to hang around York for most of the day, catch the 4:02 train to London-Kings Cross, tube to Victoria, pick up our stored luggage, check in at the hotel and go get groceries. So, how'd that go...?

Day started at 7:00, a relaxed morning compared to many. Had our breakfast, packed up everything (which was about the time we decided we might have enough Thorntons chocolate...yeesh, that stuff can get heavy!), and got checked out at 9:00. Stowed our luggage at the front desk and headed off. The weather, as was becoming typical, wasn't looking good. Our first plan was to go to the York Castle Museum. Once again, our collective wonderful sense of direction worked out. *snort* Walked down the street our hotel was on, made a right when we should have either continued straight or turned left, turned right again when a left turn would have been ok, and ended up doubling back the way we came...just one street over. We both started to clue in to our mistake at the same time (when we saw Mickelgate and part of the Wall). Turned around and headed back, eventually finding our way to the Museum.

As Sandra commented, the York Castle Museum could be confusing to people, seein' as how there's no castle involved. (the original castle was built by William the Conqueror in 1068, but the current building actually was a prison) This was our second visit and it did seem that a number of things had changed since the previous visit. That tends to be a good thing, you get to see new stuff and some old familiar stuff. As always, enjoyed the recreation of the Victoria street area (expanded since our previous visit) and the 400 years of fashion exhibit was good (there was a jacket that looked like one of Sandra's old denim jackets with Iron Maiden patches on it *G*). The toys display was fun, although some of those dolls are far creepier than my LDD collection. Spent at least an hour at the Museum, I bought a water, popped some Advil and we were off to find the Shambles (you may recall we didn't do such a good job of finding that area on our recent wander about).

Stopped for lunch at Pizza Hut first, the first place we'd ever eaten in York. Ahh, memories. *G* Good pizza and good size salad bar. Had both. While we were in there, we started to notice more and more umbrellas rearing their ugly heads outside, which was a bit of a drag. After lunch, it was off to the Shambles, which is a great place to visit...but a bit of a lesson in co-ordination, as you are walking down a very narrow street carrying an umbrella, trying to avoid bumping into everyone else under their umbrellas. Throw in random stops to take pictures and it can be fun. Especially if your damn umbrella decides it's not in a working mood. It kept trying to close, I was getting more than a little frustrated with it.

At one point, I had decided to buy a new one, went into a small store...they had none. Just as well, the umbrella decided to behave after I'd threatened it. Or so I thought. It was just lulling me into a false sense of security and started to fail again after we'd left the store. I finally called a halt to our wanderings so I could put my hood up. And then I threw the umbrella in a nearby bin. Sandra: "Well, that's definite". Normally I throw nothing out, but I had HAD it. We wandered more, shopped more, took rainy day pics and I eventually found a cheap replacement umbrella at Boots.

By this point, the rain & my knee were getting to us, so we thought to find a Starbucks to take a break. Or a Costa's. Caffe Nero? Ended up in McDonald's, where I tried their Strawberry Lemonade. Wasn't bad. Couldn't get Wi-Fi to work, though. Sat there for a bit, relaxing, watching bubbles float by outside. When we left there, naturally we found the Starbucks within 5 minutes. Figures. Did a bit more wandering before heading to the hotel to collect our luggage and trudge on over to the train station. We were a little early, but what can ya do?

The train ride, I'm happy to report, was very uneventful, no issues leaving, no issues fighting with luggage racks. On the trip down, we both agreed that it would be worth the money to get a cab to Victoria Coach, rather than fight the crowds on the tube with our suitcases/bags. Wise choice. Got our suitcases from Left Luggage and headed to the Georgian House Hotel, and our apartment. One of the hotel workers helped carry our suitcases up the four sets of stairs (which had a minimum of 8 steps, maximum of 11, different sizes, which made things fun) to apartment 5 1/2. Four was next to it. Five? Who knows? At least the bathroom was in the apartment this time, an improvement over apartment #2, where it's up a flight of 10 steps. Relaxed a bit before heading out to Sainsburys for groceries.

A word about our room this time. One sofa bed, which I didn't pull out (other room had two). Washing machine for the clothes, but no dryer and no drying rack. Two closets. A good size bedroom but the mirror was either too high if you sat down on the chair, or too low if you stood up. A small table for eating at that folded down and had high barstool like chairs. And the bathroom. Ok, our last room had a tiny bathroom with a sink, toilet and small shower stall. Not a lot of room to maneuver in there. This room had a sink, toilet and massive bathtub. And because of the bathtub, they stuck the toilet in a little cubby hole that had 1-2 inches of clearance on either side. Seriously, anyone larger than me might have run into troubles.

Still, I'm sure there are worse places to stay...

Tomorrow, our first day back in London and we plan to visit a Palace! Well, that's the plan, at least...

vacation

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