OMG We Went to England
Ahem. *Tap Tap Tap* Time to dust off this old thing. Putting up a skeleton of a post now while things are still somewhat fresh in my jet lagged brain, will try to add pics later. But OMG, we went to England! We brought West! It was a magical delight! Seriously, A++ vacation, it'll be hard to top it ever.
Day 0- August 21, aka Eclipse Day. Not too much to report, we hung around the house, saw the partial eclipse, got a ride to the airport, and flew out on a 7:20 pm flight. Ugh, red eyes. I always think they're a good idea when I'm planning them, and I never ever end up sleeping on them. I dozed a bit, but the new double-decker Airbus planes have seriously cramped seats in coach. Like, I think the $10 bus to New York has comfier seats, and I have vowed to never take the $10 bus to New York again because I'm adult and I deserve a modicum of comfort in my life. West watched 2 movies on the plane and thus didn't get enough sleep, either. It's only a 6 hour flight, so if you lose 3 of those hours to movies you're not getting much sleep.
Day 1- August 22, first real day of vacay. Landed, stood in line to go through passport control forever, picked up the rental car. I think we were on the road around 9 am? It was early-ish in the morning. There was a ton of traffic on the roads, and I was extremely tired and thus needed lots of rest area stops, so we didn't arrive in York until way late in the afternoon. It was probably around 3:00 or so when we finally pulled in and parked. Took a walk on the ancient city wall that rings the city, which was pretty cool, if a little scary for the mother of a kid who isn't always that steady on his feet. We found our apartment, which is one of two apartments rented out by the owners of a way cool, super old pub called The House of the Trembling Madness. The apartment we rented was called the Old Gallery, and it is totally supposedly haunted. We saw no ghosts, but I almost became a ghost losing my footing on the super steep uneven stairs from the upstairs bedroom loft. Also took a peek into York Minster, but didn't feel the urge to pay the admission fee to really walk around inside, because how interesting is a church to a kid anyway? Especially a kid who tried to explain to us who Jesus is by saying that Jesus and God are ghosts.
We had to move the car to our designated parking spot for apartment, which was a bit of an adventure in scary car driving (most of me driving in the UK is a scary car driving adventure). Then we went to The Golden Fleece, a pub that sports ghost stories and its very own bar skeleton. Ate a surprisingly good dinner there, then went on a ghost tour. Of the two ghost tours we did in York, this one was my favorite. York is so charming, it has tons of old buildings and feels like a time warp. Lots and lots of restaurants and pubs, too. Not that we could enjoy interesting restaurants or too many pubs with our little sidekick.
Day 2- August 23. We had to cram a lot of sightseeing in to make up for arriving so late in the day the day before. We started the day getting bagels at a bagel shop, then got to Jorvik, the Viking Experience a little before it opened. The line for that attraction is intense! It was a really cool thing to do- there's a bit of the building where the floor is glass over the foundation excavation of a Viking settlement in York, then you go on a little ride through a set up of a Viking village, complete with animatronic people and animals. I love animatronics so much!!! The ride was super awesome. After the ride you go through a couple of rooms with real Viking artifacts that were dug up in York, and you can pay a dude a couple of pounds to have him stamp a coin for you with a big hammer. Having charge of a 7 year old boy, we obviously paid the pounds for the stamped coin, and West was suitably impressed. It started raining buckets outside while we were in there, so when we left we walked as fast as we could to get to our next stop.
Next stop was the York Castle Museum (which is in the line of sight of Clifford's Tower, presumably the castle to which the museum refers). This museum knocked my socks off. I love living history museums even more than I love animatronics. The first bit of the museum is "period rooms," which are rooms you gaze upon that are set up to be as they would have looked in a particular year. Very cool and very detailed. Then there are some other history rooms, in particular, some about the history of toys. Finally, you get to the part I was most looking forward to- the Victorian street recreation. You walk through an area that's been done up to look as genuinely like a Victoria street as possible, and you can go inside the various shops. There are costumed people in character, like a guy in the chemist shop who will talk to you about old timey pharmacies. Some rooms even have smells wafting through, like the candle maker shop really smells like tallow, and the cocoa room smells like chocolate. Other rooms you can go in include a candy shop, a police lock-up, a school room, a cloth shop, a harness maker's workshop, a toy shop, and you can peek in a coffin maker's shop and a tiny one room home. The museum has a whole other wing that we didn't even have time to get to! By the time we finished with that, it was time for lunch, so we set out to a pub to get some food. After lunch we rambled around town a bit, because the rain had stopped, and then Drew went off on his own for a bit, and I took West to a tea shop to get afternoon tea and cake. It was so good! West is still rapturous about the chocolate brownie he had. I think we walked around some more after that, and eventually got some dinner at an Italian restaurant, then went on another ghost tour.
Day 3- Drew went to the store and brought some bagels and fruit back to the apartment for us to chow down on early, then we all set out to frantically search for coffee. Coffee in hand, we met up with our minibus for our day trip, only to be told we couldn't bring coffee on the bus. So we scalded our mouths and threw away half our coffee, and clambered aboard for a guided tour of the North York Moors. There were several other couples on board- some people from Wales and another American couple. West was the only kid, but he was awesome all day. This was amazing. We had great weather, and the moors were just as I always imagined them in my Wuthering Heights daydreams. Our first stop was to see a white horse on a cliff around the entrance to the North York Moors national park. We continued on to the small market town of Helmsley, which was super picturesque and quaint. The ratio of tea rooms to everything else was a little surprising- how do they sell so much tea and cake?! We took a short walk from the town center and saw some castle ruins. Back in the bus, and we traveled over the moors with some photo stops along the way. Around noon we landed in the seaside town of Whitby, which we were really excited to explore, but it turned to be kind of a dud in terms of enjoyment versus expectations. It was incredibly crowded, and when you're on a tight time schedule to see some sights before the bus leaves, it's stressful to be at the mercy of a surge of tightly packed crowds. We managed to get a serviceable lunch at a pub, then walked up 199 steps to visit Whitby Abbey, the site of Bram Stoker's inspiration for Dracula. When we got up to the abbey West ran off yelling "I gotta go fight Dracula!" It was very pretty up there, and nicely windswept. We then fought our way back down through the main town area to try to get to the Whitby Museum so Drew could see their creepy Hand of Glory. We got turned around directionaly, and eventually I bailed on the endeavor so West and I could meet up with the bus and if necessary hold it so Drew didn't get stranded. We all had time for a few minutes before the bus left to watch some Morris dancers and talk to the guy who I guess organized the folk dancing festival. He really wanted West to get into Morris dancing. Back onto the bus, through some more moors, to a tiny town called Grosmont. We took a ride on the North York Moors Railway steam train from that town to Goathland. The Goathland station was used for the filming of Hogsmeade in a couple of Harry Potter movies, and it was very quaint and scenic. By that point, West was pretty toast, so it wasn't as exciting for him as I thought it would be. Drove through more idyllic scenery, saw tons of sheep, including sheep just hanging out in town squares and on the roads, and finally mad it back to York. We got dinner at Yo Sushi that night, thinking it would be a delightful experience for West. It was a tasty dinner for us, and he thought the conveyor belt was cool, but not cool enough for him to try even just cucumber sushi. He ate a bowl of teriyaki steak, so I guess that's something.
More in the next post!
Day 0- August 21, aka Eclipse Day. Not too much to report, we hung around the house, saw the partial eclipse, got a ride to the airport, and flew out on a 7:20 pm flight. Ugh, red eyes. I always think they're a good idea when I'm planning them, and I never ever end up sleeping on them. I dozed a bit, but the new double-decker Airbus planes have seriously cramped seats in coach. Like, I think the $10 bus to New York has comfier seats, and I have vowed to never take the $10 bus to New York again because I'm adult and I deserve a modicum of comfort in my life. West watched 2 movies on the plane and thus didn't get enough sleep, either. It's only a 6 hour flight, so if you lose 3 of those hours to movies you're not getting much sleep.
Day 1- August 22, first real day of vacay. Landed, stood in line to go through passport control forever, picked up the rental car. I think we were on the road around 9 am? It was early-ish in the morning. There was a ton of traffic on the roads, and I was extremely tired and thus needed lots of rest area stops, so we didn't arrive in York until way late in the afternoon. It was probably around 3:00 or so when we finally pulled in and parked. Took a walk on the ancient city wall that rings the city, which was pretty cool, if a little scary for the mother of a kid who isn't always that steady on his feet. We found our apartment, which is one of two apartments rented out by the owners of a way cool, super old pub called The House of the Trembling Madness. The apartment we rented was called the Old Gallery, and it is totally supposedly haunted. We saw no ghosts, but I almost became a ghost losing my footing on the super steep uneven stairs from the upstairs bedroom loft. Also took a peek into York Minster, but didn't feel the urge to pay the admission fee to really walk around inside, because how interesting is a church to a kid anyway? Especially a kid who tried to explain to us who Jesus is by saying that Jesus and God are ghosts.
We had to move the car to our designated parking spot for apartment, which was a bit of an adventure in scary car driving (most of me driving in the UK is a scary car driving adventure). Then we went to The Golden Fleece, a pub that sports ghost stories and its very own bar skeleton. Ate a surprisingly good dinner there, then went on a ghost tour. Of the two ghost tours we did in York, this one was my favorite. York is so charming, it has tons of old buildings and feels like a time warp. Lots and lots of restaurants and pubs, too. Not that we could enjoy interesting restaurants or too many pubs with our little sidekick.
Day 2- August 23. We had to cram a lot of sightseeing in to make up for arriving so late in the day the day before. We started the day getting bagels at a bagel shop, then got to Jorvik, the Viking Experience a little before it opened. The line for that attraction is intense! It was a really cool thing to do- there's a bit of the building where the floor is glass over the foundation excavation of a Viking settlement in York, then you go on a little ride through a set up of a Viking village, complete with animatronic people and animals. I love animatronics so much!!! The ride was super awesome. After the ride you go through a couple of rooms with real Viking artifacts that were dug up in York, and you can pay a dude a couple of pounds to have him stamp a coin for you with a big hammer. Having charge of a 7 year old boy, we obviously paid the pounds for the stamped coin, and West was suitably impressed. It started raining buckets outside while we were in there, so when we left we walked as fast as we could to get to our next stop.
Next stop was the York Castle Museum (which is in the line of sight of Clifford's Tower, presumably the castle to which the museum refers). This museum knocked my socks off. I love living history museums even more than I love animatronics. The first bit of the museum is "period rooms," which are rooms you gaze upon that are set up to be as they would have looked in a particular year. Very cool and very detailed. Then there are some other history rooms, in particular, some about the history of toys. Finally, you get to the part I was most looking forward to- the Victorian street recreation. You walk through an area that's been done up to look as genuinely like a Victoria street as possible, and you can go inside the various shops. There are costumed people in character, like a guy in the chemist shop who will talk to you about old timey pharmacies. Some rooms even have smells wafting through, like the candle maker shop really smells like tallow, and the cocoa room smells like chocolate. Other rooms you can go in include a candy shop, a police lock-up, a school room, a cloth shop, a harness maker's workshop, a toy shop, and you can peek in a coffin maker's shop and a tiny one room home. The museum has a whole other wing that we didn't even have time to get to! By the time we finished with that, it was time for lunch, so we set out to a pub to get some food. After lunch we rambled around town a bit, because the rain had stopped, and then Drew went off on his own for a bit, and I took West to a tea shop to get afternoon tea and cake. It was so good! West is still rapturous about the chocolate brownie he had. I think we walked around some more after that, and eventually got some dinner at an Italian restaurant, then went on another ghost tour.
Day 3- Drew went to the store and brought some bagels and fruit back to the apartment for us to chow down on early, then we all set out to frantically search for coffee. Coffee in hand, we met up with our minibus for our day trip, only to be told we couldn't bring coffee on the bus. So we scalded our mouths and threw away half our coffee, and clambered aboard for a guided tour of the North York Moors. There were several other couples on board- some people from Wales and another American couple. West was the only kid, but he was awesome all day. This was amazing. We had great weather, and the moors were just as I always imagined them in my Wuthering Heights daydreams. Our first stop was to see a white horse on a cliff around the entrance to the North York Moors national park. We continued on to the small market town of Helmsley, which was super picturesque and quaint. The ratio of tea rooms to everything else was a little surprising- how do they sell so much tea and cake?! We took a short walk from the town center and saw some castle ruins. Back in the bus, and we traveled over the moors with some photo stops along the way. Around noon we landed in the seaside town of Whitby, which we were really excited to explore, but it turned to be kind of a dud in terms of enjoyment versus expectations. It was incredibly crowded, and when you're on a tight time schedule to see some sights before the bus leaves, it's stressful to be at the mercy of a surge of tightly packed crowds. We managed to get a serviceable lunch at a pub, then walked up 199 steps to visit Whitby Abbey, the site of Bram Stoker's inspiration for Dracula. When we got up to the abbey West ran off yelling "I gotta go fight Dracula!" It was very pretty up there, and nicely windswept. We then fought our way back down through the main town area to try to get to the Whitby Museum so Drew could see their creepy Hand of Glory. We got turned around directionaly, and eventually I bailed on the endeavor so West and I could meet up with the bus and if necessary hold it so Drew didn't get stranded. We all had time for a few minutes before the bus left to watch some Morris dancers and talk to the guy who I guess organized the folk dancing festival. He really wanted West to get into Morris dancing. Back onto the bus, through some more moors, to a tiny town called Grosmont. We took a ride on the North York Moors Railway steam train from that town to Goathland. The Goathland station was used for the filming of Hogsmeade in a couple of Harry Potter movies, and it was very quaint and scenic. By that point, West was pretty toast, so it wasn't as exciting for him as I thought it would be. Drove through more idyllic scenery, saw tons of sheep, including sheep just hanging out in town squares and on the roads, and finally mad it back to York. We got dinner at Yo Sushi that night, thinking it would be a delightful experience for West. It was a tasty dinner for us, and he thought the conveyor belt was cool, but not cool enough for him to try even just cucumber sushi. He ate a bowl of teriyaki steak, so I guess that's something.
More in the next post!