York (1)

Okay, I am waay behind here.

Monday it was time to go to York. I’ll begin by saying that this step had become a bit fraught because on Saturday afternoon, the owner of our Airbnb in York had messaged me to say that she was very sorry, but the work that was being done on the apartment would not be finished by Monday, and she was cancelling our reservation.

Oh.

Luckily, there was a lot of availability, and I immediately got another apartment for just a touch more but with a lot more space and – best of all – a washer and dryer. Well, a washer/dryer combination that was, as per usual with European appliances, festooned with code and runes impossible to understand with no manual anywhere and no manufacturer name evident on the machine and no searching of “WD001” bearing any useful fruit. The owner did give us a rundown on how to operate it before she left us, which I made my sons listen to as well, since I am not, to say the least, an auditory learner.

But we are jumping ahead!

Monday morning, we got up, checked out and rode the bus to the train station, and after some delays – a truck had rammed into a bridge somewhere so we had to take another track – we got to York by 2pm.

(I will say that I am impressed with the English forthrightness about refunds. It’s all very clear and direct. We were only delayed by 22 minutes, but if it had been 30 – we would have been entitled to a 50% refund, no questions asked. An hour? 100%. I assume it all works, and if it does, it certainly is an incentive to run those trains on time.)

We walked to the apartment – about a 10 minute walk, through the Micklegate and over to Priory Street. As I said, the apartment was lovely, and the space just what we all needed after three nights together in one small (nice) room with two beds, total.

(Note Diet Coke. Spoiled brat me is grateful that they drink Diet Coke, not Coca-Cola Light, in England.)

Then off to York, and the first thing there was food – so let’s do fish and chips, of course.

Drake’s Fish and Chips. York Minister in the background.

By the time we finished eating, it was around 3:30, and the problem – something we’d found in Oxford as well – was that everything closes at 5, or at the very latest 6. I guess that is not a problem for employees who have a decent workday, but it is a little challenging when it comes to sightseeing or even shopping. We even found a lot of restaurants close by 7 or 8.

And I thought Birmingham (AL) was bad on that score…

So what that meant was that “attractions” – such as York Minster and the Yorkshire Museum – might have been open by the time we finished eating, but only for a short time. Oh, and I should mention that one of the major sites of York – the National Railway Museum – is close on Mondays and Tuesdays – both days of our visit, so that was out.

Well, what was in? The Museum gardens, for one, including the ruins of St. Mary’s Abbey.

Followed by a walk atop a good chunk of York’s city walls – the largest stretch of city walls still remaining in England.

Followed, once we got back, by the always incredibly fun activity of figuring out the washing machine without a manual.

Tomorrow: More York and starting to stress about this “Industrial Action” – aka rail strike.

(Remember – I am posting more as we go on Instagram Stories, and each day’s set is archived in the Highlights.)

And I am writing this in a place that is not quite York: