These Lights Will Inspire You

For the most part I consider myself a level-headed person, especially when the pressures on. In fact when the clock is ticking, that's when I'm in my prime because it's do or die time. I also consider myself to be a patient person--now before you object let me explain. By patient I mean that I'm not really in a hurry. Admittedly I am prone to agitation and frustration which I blame on the Thibodeaux's. Finally I like my sleep. Nay, I love my sleep. Mornings and I have never really seen eye to eye. Oddly enough I am prone to phases of insomnia where I hardly sleep at all. Now that you have this background, I would like to welcome you on board to the virtual ride of Nathan's trip to York. We woke up at 4:45 Friday morning so we could catch our 6:00 train out of Oxford to London. If this wasn't bad enough, I had a stint of insomnia the previous night so I had no sleep. My friends, I was one sleepy hombre. Anyways we make it to the train station and we go up to order our train tickets. A couple of weeks ago we all got return tickets plus and all-day underground pass to London for £12.50, so we were expecting the same today. I found out just how inexperienced I am with the rail system in Europe. When we went to London it was a Saturday and it wasn't at 'peak time.' This was a Friday, right smack in the middle of peak time. End of story was that we got one-way tickets with a one-way underground for the gutting price of £30. Ouch. But whatever. We were going to York and it was a cheap trip anyways.

Our confidence in getting to York quickly started to dwindle when we got on the train, as we watched the clock tick past 6, and then 6:15, and then 6:30. We had a bus to catch out of London to York at 8:15 and it takes over an hour to get to London, and then we had to find where the coaches left and all that jazz. And I had no sleep the night before. I was uncharacteristically pessimistic and characteristically pissed. How can a train already be delayed that early in the morning?? But finally we pulled out at 6:45 and arrived in London at 7:45. But by the time we got off the underground at King's Cross where the coaches took off, we had five minutes to figure out where the heck we were supposed to go and then actually physically get there. AHHHH. Things looked grim and it didn't help that the staff at King's Cross kept pointing to the trains and telling us that we had to get on. I'm practically yelling trying to explain that our tickets are for a bus and not a freakin' train! But since we weren't getting anywhere we went ahead and hopped on the appointed train that was heading for East Midland Parkway--with 30 seconds to spare. At this point I'm positive that we are not going anywhere close to York. But this story turned out to be a Comedy and there was a bus (delayed) to pick us up in East Midlands to take us to York. I just wish our ticket would have said that we had to take a 2 hour train ride in the middle of the trip!

York was excellent. We got an awesome hostel that was spotlessly clean, provided a complimentary yummy breakfast, and had nice staff. And nobody was raped.




It was interesting though. Since we had hardly slept the night before we were all exhausted, so we went to bed early around 9 o'clock, and it was just us four in the room. When I woke up in the morning, I rolled out of bed to find six strange men sleeping in the previously empty beds. I've never slept in a hostel so I was a bit taken aback, but I guess that's pretty normal.

The city was awesome. York used to be controlled by vikings. We visited a viking museum that had an actual ride built in that took you through an average day in the life of a viking. There were even specific smells during different scenes, like fish by the river and stew in the huts. We went to Evensong at York Minster Cathedral. Cathedrals never cease to mesmerize my brain, and York Minster was no exception.


Clifford's Tower was incredible too, and it gave an excellent view of the entire city center. Castles are just so majestic and mighty. We also got to walk around the original castle wall the encircles the city center! Legit.




York has tons of posters that advertise ghost tours at night. What sounded cool quickly lost its appeal when we saw about the seventieth unique ghost tour sign. However we did find one sign promoting a Viking Walk around York, and the tour guide was some published author. Eh, why not? It ended up being awesome. This nutter dressed like a Viking gave us an incredible tour of the spots in York where the Viking invasions and defeats took place. The guy really knew his stuff. Keith would have been proud to hear the story of one of his relatives who stood alone and defended a bridge from the Anglo-Saxons; cutting off 42 heads in the process.

That about sums up our trip! York's a sweet place. I wish I would have gotten an 'I Love York,' shirt. But yah York is definitely worth your time if you ever find yourself in the area!

Oh yah, I did promise: