Now is the Winter of Discontent...

When I first arrived in York I admit I was rather irate. It was cold again and it seemed that everywhere I went I was forced to pay outrageous sums of money to go to crappy attractions. Alright I'll begin by telling you the exchange rate from pounds to AUD is approximately 2.5 so you can get an idea of why I was going crazy.

For example the York Castle Museum cost me £5 and can only be described as a waste of time. Well actually if you want a proper rundown it is basically a museum dedicated to the mundane - mainly housework. So the only reason I didn't run outside immediately is because I paid £5 to get in.

Clifford's Tower also charges an outrageous £2.50 or something like that for entry into a broken rubble on top of a hill. Whatever!

However I started to come around after I visted the York Minister which is apparently the biggest Gothic Cathedral in Northern Europe. It has the most AMAZING stained glass windows I have ever seen. Apparently preserved because Cromwell's general in the Reformation was some dude actually from York so sheltered it from the bash happy soldiers and the like. Although getting into the Minister (and the Undercroft) cost me something like £6 it was definitely worth the admission price - especially when you find out that the poor Minister is actually close to falling into ruin and the cost of maintaining it for 30 seconds is £2.50. If you are an avid fan of history like me DO NOT miss the tour of the Undercroft. It comes with a free audio tour that spews really interesting fact at you and you get to see all these really fascinating foundations and the like.

But never despair! There are also some awesome free attractions in York. The Art Museum is free (if tiny) and best of all the Association of Voluntary Guides in York gives a free guided walking tour at 10:15am every day. A guide who (voluntarily, obviously) gives up their free time will take you around the city for about 2 hours regaling you with stories from York's history (and given the historic nature of the city, believe me there are plenty of tales) and pointing out these fascinating little nooks and crannies that you would never have noticed had you gone pottering around independently.

I also enjoyed sitting on the bridge in the morning and watching the crazy pigeons circle overhead in aimless loops. I like to think that maybe some young bright spark bird one day just decided that his diet of overprocessed white bread (fed to him by obese tourists) was making him horizontally ample and thus he needed to reverse this hideous problem by flying around in endless and pointless circles. Soon this body image conscious trend caught on and now all these birds of a feather flock together every morning for this daily flight to battle the bulge.

Now for those well versed in Shakespeare you may have noticed that I've again borrowed from Richard III for a headline (note I didn't say quoted because I can't really remember the exact wording of the quote). Now this is not due to any particular love for that particular monarch but it just chances that there is a tiny museum in York (in one of the guard towers on the wall) that puts poor Richard III on trial for the murder of the two princes in the Tower. (You know, Richard's 2 little nephew princes that he locked up in the Tower of London) They actually have an appallingly bad mannequin of Richard III in a witness box and you can listen to an audio recording of his 'cross-examination'. Now the lawyer in me was most upset by the fact that the defence were actually allowed to cross-examine their own witness and I was most tempted to jump up with 'Objection your honour! Leading the witness!' but alas I did not think that an audio recording would respond too well to that kind of excited interaction! :p

Anyway, I am now on a train from York to Edinburgh. I am SO impressed by the long distance trains here in England. Not only do they have power sockets in the wall so you can charge your electrical appliances, but they also have WIRELESS INTERNET in the carriages. Okay so I can't get on it right now because I'm too poor to pay but goodness I'm still majorly impressed!