City of York

I know it's been a while, but I have a few more blog posts about England. August tends to be a really busy month both at work and home so I'm behind on my blogging (insert sheepish smile, here).

Our trip took us to the city of York which is just another one of those cute places we found along our trip. By this part of our trip, I was feeling a little "Englanded" out, if that makes any sense. I know I've said this before, but everywhere we went was so busy and crazy, and while I tend to prefer busy and crazy, it wasn't my personal busy and crazy so I felt a little overwhelmed by all of the people.

As usual, everything was closing down at 5 and we showed up right around that. Trying to find a place to eat was such a nightmare. Every restaurant was packed with people. We ended up eating at Subway.

The streets of York looked a lot like this. Pretty cute if you ask me.

The other thing we discovered was the hen night, or as we know it, a bachelorette party. Englanders take their bachelor and bachelorette parties seriously, folks! This is how it shakes down--the cute little hens get dressed up in their most sparkly, spangly, tight-fitting outfits (read: tacky 80s garb) with really bad heels and then they get really drunk. And then those cute little hens aren't so cute anymore. Picture smudged mascara and lipstick. Perhaps some falling. Oh, and they cackle when they laugh. Seriously! At least the girls in York gave us a show like that. They were a little creepy. And the bride-to-be typically wears some sort of a tiara, veil, or devil horns with the phrase "bride" splayed across it. She's usually the drunkest out of all of them.

Actually, they were kind of funny. But we did have a run in with some of the "hens." They were a little drunk and thought it would be funny to harrass us as we stood in line for a ghost tour in York. Annoying. They got a little too close to my personal space--another Americanism that I was well aware of before traveling overseas. I don't like people being in my bubble. Ever. Unless you're male and hot. Just FYI.

Our last castle that we visited was Castle Howard. This place is great! It's so big but worth the money to pay to see. One of the first things we saw when we entered the castle was this peacock on full display.

One of the things I wanted to do while in England was to visit a quintessential English garden which may seem kind of stupid, but to me it just seems like the epitome of visiting an English estate. I guess I had visions of Pemberley in my mind (see the BBC Pride and Prejudice to understand).

When we walked into the gardens of Castle Howard I was pretty excited. It happened to be a Sunday and felt like a perfect Sunday activity. The grounds were beautiful.

A view of Castle Howard. Wow.

There's a funny story behind this picture. I asked Mindy to take this picture and when I looked at it in my camera's viewfinder it had the distinct feeling that my head had been photoshopped in. Like I'd planted myself in this picture. Even Mindy thought it as well because we laughed a lot over this picture. It seems kind of silly now but then again, Mindy and I laugh over the dumbest stuff which I love that we do.

In case you can't tell, it was an overcast day, like almost all of the days we had in England. This day in particular was super hot and muggy. Which I guess makes sense--the sun is never out when it's humid. At least, that's what I overserved.

One other thing we wanted to do was to watch a sporting event. I was kind of leaning towards soccer but it wasn't the season. Mostly I wanted to see the Brits at a sporting event. They get so intense about it! But we did watch some of a polo match, I would have liked to watch the whole thing. It's amazing what those players can do while on horseback.

The castle looks out onto this lake. What a view!

I know, you've seen about a million pictures of this castle. But it becomes a sickness, trying to capture every angle of the picture before you.

An interesting thing about Castle Howard--the Howard family still lives in it. It has been in the family for 300 years. I think as I mentioned with Warwick Castle, generally a castle falls into disrepair and then it gets shuffled to different people who have the means to afford a castle. So this is kind of interesting that the Howard family still owns it. One of the ways they can still maintain their home is by opening it up to the public. That makes complete sense to me. What didn't make sense to me was the family photos that were on display. And they were faced out so you could see the children playing in the pool, riding a horse . . . things like that. I guess I don't see why people need to see my family photos.

Inside the castle. There is an entire hallway of busts and statues.

One of the notable features of the castle is the dome in the center of the castle. According to the docens, there was a large fire in 1940 that destroyed the dome and almost 20 rooms. A mural had been painted in the top of the dome that was obviously lost in the fire. The only record they had of the mural were some black and white photos that were taken of the dome and mural in the early 20th century. The owner, George Howard, employed an artisit to recreate the original mural. By interpreting the gradations of the black and white photos, the commissioned artist was able to interpret the exact colors used in the original mural. Amazing to think you could do that!

Lastly, this is a ghost tour we took in the actual city of York. Ghost tours are pretty popular in England (probably because it's the only non-alcoholic activity one can take part in after 5). We followed this guy in traditional wear who told scary / ghost stories as we walked through the streets of England. He was pretty funny. You should see how he torments this poor woman he pulled out of the crowd.