The Minster and more of York

Wednesday, July 18, 2018
London, England, United Kingdom
This morning we woke up and had breakfast downstairs. We were showed to our seat by a kindly women named Maureen. A bus tour had just come down so the place was pretty full. We were right by the buffet. The woman behind the counter kept calling out “Are you okay? Can I make you a fried egg or anything?” To each guest who came her way. Staff around England keep asking “Are you okay?”  She managed to do it in a tone that conveyed the intended meaning “May I help you?” though other places I’ve been a little self-conscious that I might not look like I’m okay.  In any case, I was just trying to get myself warmed up to the idea of a fried egg when Bryan walked up and asked if he could have an omelet. Turns out she had all the fixings for omelets stashed away as well. In a few minutes, we both had omelets to enjoy. 
Directly after breakfast we walked out to the castle. Seeing that it didn’t open until 10:00AM we went across the street, through the park, and walked along the water for a bit. It was cool and pleasant. We walked across a drawbridge and then came back.  
We rested for a while in the hotel, then gathered our things and checked out. They charged us an appealing zero pounds (as we had paid with points) and held our bags for us. 
We returned to the castle and climbed up the stairs to the gate. The cost to go in and climb a few more stairs was going to be £12 for the two of us. It didn’t look like there would be much to see inside, since it was small, and so we decided to save our money for a higher climb and more impressive view later from the Minster. 
We next returned to the pedestrian area around and in the Shambles. It was nice to see it in the morning. Men were washing the windows and areas in front of their shops. We walked through a garden and then Bryan took me up on the walls around the town and we enjoyed that walk a lot. We took a bunch of pictures because it was pretty. And part of it was shaded, too, so that was pretty great. It was refreshing to see the green of the trees. 
Next we went back to a restaurant that had caught our eye yesterday: Old White Swan. It fit the bill of an old English pub. We skipped the fish and chips this time and ordered sandwiches. Bryan enjoyed a pint of cider with his (and I helped a little). “It comes in pints??” we joked.  Bryan had a club sandwich, and I found an open faced sandwich with avocado and goat cheese. It was pretty tasty. 
Next was the main ticketed event for the day: we visited the Minster. At first I felt odd about a place of worship requiring a ticket for entry. But the building is a masterpiece and well worth the cost to maintain and preserve it. And as we walked through, it was clear that the church was using this as a way to educate those who visited and invite them into prayer and worship. Thoughts about the propriety of collecting funds for entrance to the sanctuary were soon overshadowed by a sense of awe about the sanctuary itself. 
I took many pictures, but really, Bryan and I agreed that none of them will do the place justice. It is grand in scale. Completely huge. There are SO many stain glass windows. And the inside feels very bright and open. We looked at the Biblical accounts told in the glass, went downstairs and marveled at the history uncovered when they had to do repair on a portion of the foundation, and finally climbed up the narrow, uneven 275 steps to the top.  It was really exciting to climb to the top! The views of the town were beautiful, and getting an up close look at the spires and stone work was really neat. 
After all that climbing we decided we had definitely earned some gelato. Bryan navigates us over to Roberto’s where he had chocolate gelato and I had mango. Oh, how I love the sorbetto over here. The texture is so good!  Not like the firm, icy stuff we have in the States. It is an absolute treat. Also, it was a treat to sit in those wicker chairs for a few minutes and just listen to the Italian staff talking amongst themselves. It felt as though we had stepped for a moment into Italy. 
Next we went in search of a bottle of scotch whiskey for our friend Chad. He had given us the name of a kind he liked and we figured we would look and see what we could find. What we found was a friendly gentleman who entertained us for about twenty minutes with stories and information about the different whiskeys, as well as tastes of a number of them. When we had tasted as many as seemed prudent for that time of day, we selected a bottle and thanked the man. 
Shortly thereafter we went back to the hotel use our coupons for free drinks. (We were given these upon check-in as a substitution since there was no executive lounge available for us as Gold members.) We were hoping to enjoy the AC and use the WiFi while killing some time before collecting our bags. I chose a soft drink (AppleSoft) and Bryan selected a pear cider with strawberry and lime flavor. Both were very good, and very cold. Our WiFi password no longer worked, alas.  But otherwise it worked as planned. 
Once we had our backpacks on we walked over to where we had met the local Pokémon players yesterday. There was a raid going on and 15 of us gathered there. One man acted as organizer and split the group into two smaller group by team allegiance. Then they gave us the code for a private raid and we all played the game together for a few minutes, trying to best and capture a strong Pokémon.  Afterward we asked if anyone wanted to trade for our Tauros. The gal next to me said “let me try to just control my excitement a bit!”  We trades and I got one from here that is regional to another area (she had caught it in Finland) so that was fun. 
We said goodbye and headed over to the Minster because I wanted to hear the choir sing before we left. We asked at the door if it was possible to enter service for Evensong with our bags. They called security over to check them and he denied us entry because of the size of our bags. 
We had remembered another Pokémon that our friends back home would be really excited about if we could grab, so we walked back over to where we had been playing on the off chance that folks were still hanging out. Some of them were, and we traded. The guy I traded with was really excited about the distance apart that we had caught those that we traded (there are metals in the game for different levels of mileage).  Again, it was just fun to have an “in” with some locals to do something together and chat a bit. 
We went to Subway and grabbed ourselves foot long sandwiches. We ate half at the railway station on our way to the hotel near the airport, and plan to eat the next on the airplane on our way back to the States. We visited platform 9 3/4 when we got to that station, but even after 10 PM on a Thursday there was a huge cue. Not only that, but it was roped off, with official photographers and props!  Needing to leave early in the morning, we decided to skip the line, but it looked like they were taking really good photos of those willing to wait. 
We walked what felt like a long way in the dark. The city gave way to fields, neighborhoods, and we even saw some gas stations. We crossed the most enormous roundabout and decided that as pedestrians (with no crosswalk signal) we didn’t want to have to do that again. But we made it the hotel safely. The clock when we got to our room reminded us that we were running out of day. We set our alarm for 5AM and dropped into bed. 
This has been a great trip overall, and we look forward to returning to England someday in the future. Thanks to everyone who read along! 

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