York – Last Stop in the UK

After leaving Wales we drove straight to our B&B in York.  The car trip was one of the better ones and the kids kept the fighting and screaming to their lowest levels of the trip (still reached epic levels near the end but the fact that we had a couple hours of peace was progress).  We stayed in the Oak Suite which was very nice and included a small bunk room so that the older boys could have their own space.  It also had a private patio that opened up on to a public garden with a trampoline and a play structure.  This was our kind of place!   We ate at a Wetherspoons that night, our first since London, which was actually much better than the previous Wetherspoons we had eaten at (good curry).

The next day we walked around York a bit and enjoyed the sites.  York’s city center is very compact and can be walked across in about 15 minutes.  We had a nice picnic in a park overlooking a ruined abbey and then checked out York Minster.  We then made our way to the York Castle Museum.  The museum has nothing to do with castles other than that is on the site where a castle once stood. Instead it is has artifacts and recreations of life around York in the 17^th and 18^th centuries.  While it didn’t sound like a lot of fun before we went we all agreed that it was the best museum that we have been to thus far.  Their recreation of a Victorian city complete with shopkeepers, a fire house, a police station and school house was really cool.  The boys also really enjoyed the live fire demonstration of a 17^th century pistol.

That night we ate a Peruvian chicken restaurant that I had been eyeing when we first got to York, Nando’s, which ended up being great.  Most importantly it was the first time we had gotten a really good salad in three weeks!  The food in the UK in generally been lackluster to awful.  Vegetables seem to be generally served either as a garnish or boiled to the point where all of the nutrition has been cooked out of them and they seem to think that french fries (chips) are a critical food group of their own.   We’re looking forward to getting to Paris and loading up on fresh, raw vegetables.

Jen's always convinced a car's gonna hit us.

On our last day in the UK, after eating at Nando’s again and chowing on salad, we visited the Jorvick Viking Center.  We didn’t expect much as the guidebooks had said it would be good for kids but a little too cheesy for adults.  They were right but it was a good educational experience none-the-less.  We rounded out the day with a return to the Castle Museum to get a chance for the kids to hold antique guns.  This exhibit had been closed the day before and all of the kids wanted to get back and check it out.  A great photo op.

So all in all, York was a good experience but as we were walking around York I found that I was in a different state of mind than I had been in the past.  Ever since we started the trip I’ve had second thoughts.  Is this really going to work?  Can I handle being with the kids 24 hours a day?  Is the experience worth the energy that it takes to accomplish?  In York, and in retrospect it probably started in Wales, I stopped doubting.  It’s been a lot harder to learn how to be together than I thought it would be and I understand why several of the people who have blogged about similar trips have commented that in the beginning they have had to fight off urges to go home.  Jen and I have both been fighting those urges since we first got to London.  But now, three weeks in, I think we are both feeling much more at peace and the urges seem to have dissipated.  We’re having fun! I can only hope that this is a sign of things to come.

Onward to Paris!