Great Expectations in York

My, my, my! A trully crazy weekend in gorgeous, historic York! I think I can genuinely say that I have learned that prophecies of great expectations sometimes fall rather short in reality. This is not at all to discredit the city of beautiful York, but rather it is a testement to our, or my, great lack of preparation. Yet even more so, I'm beginning to believe that even planning has its limits...

The trip starts off on a sunny, but windy Friday afternoon. Steph, Anninha and I met on the steps of Parkinson (which to me is the Roman Colliseum of Leeds University, but more so a generally convinient meeting place). We were planning to take the free city bus to the bus station. Much to our dismay, 3 buses passed by, one right after another just before we could make it to the stop. Steph tried to mount the bus, but seemed to forget that the door was on the other side... We waited 20 minutes for the next bus that never came (they're supposed to come every few minutes), and while the gusting winds (out of nowhere) blew my hat away (which I thankfully retrieved), we searched frantically for a taxi that we never found. Finally, with 10 minutes before our bus's departure (we had already bought our tickets online), we boarded a bus to the station, just to make it in the nick of time. So the panic was over. Or so I thought...

We rode the bus for 45 minutes or so, and pulled into a little town, which seemed to be York. Yet there was no announcement made, nor did the bus pull into any particular stop. As we pulled back on to the highway of gorgeous green fields and blue skies, we looked at eachother strangely. We were excited to go on the ferris wheel in that town, but sighed when we realized that the town couldn't have been York. We, after all, were still travelling towards our destination. Well after an hour and a half, glacing at the clock, we realized it was only supposed to be a 45 minute bus ride. Apparently, we somehow, had missed our stop. Steph and Anninha found this extremely funny. Yet while they were laughing histerically, I was seemingly on the verge of a nervous breakdown...

To make a long story short, we got off at the next stop at Middlesborough and took a train back to York. York and Leeds are adjacent to one another on the train route. We managed to travel 4 stops past York...

We FINALLY arrived, checked into the hostel, met up with everyone else and went on a mini pub crawl where the men seemed overtly friendly, or maybe just plain intoxicated. We had a good night, but soon retired to our uncomfortable beds.

In the morning the hostel provided us with a delightful feast for a breakfast (not that I'm complaining at all). We headed towards the old gothic church, had a little walk around, walked through the city center, spent a rediculous amount of money on the most amazing chocolates (see picture above), met up with more people, enjoyed a nice lunch, watched Steph get pooped on, saw the castle area (where everyone laughted because I sat in poop), the York Castle Museum, as well as the Fairfax Victorian house. I have to say that I really enjoyed the Fairfax house- the walls felt as if they were ripe with passion, the ceilings magnificently displayed the crafted artistry of the Victorian period, and I could smell the antiquity of the furniture. Absolutely beautiful.

I am happy to report that we caught our bus back with much time to spare, and we arrived back in Leeds to see it in a whole new appreciation. Let me explain, the city bus goes around in a loop, and on the way back, we were able to see just how much of Leeds we had yet to see, but will see eventually (I will make sure of this)!! Upon arrival in the flat, I felt that I was just too tired to go out, but with a couple of people over, a glass of wine, and a little convincing, a bunch of us headed out to The Terrace for drinks, but I soon retired for the night, along with my camera, with which I had exhausted by having taken 350 pictures in about 30 hours.

It gets better. This morning I wanted to make everyone a "Canadian" breakfast, so I made, what else, pancakes- but not just ordinary pancakes- banana chocolate chip pancakes, which were really quite good, while listening to Jack Johnson's "Banana Pancakes" on the stereo. yuuummy!!!

But wait, even better. I went off to the gym and the library today to catch up on some readings and work off round 2 of the freshman 15, and everyone had actually made a Sunday roast, full out chicken dinner with all the trimmings!! Although today is actually Thanksgiving back home, ironically, that's not why they made it, but I just called it my Thanksgiving turkey dinner. If any of you are reading this, I have to say that it was absolutely DELICIOUSLY AMAZING!!

Speaking of thanksgiving, a couple of posts ago, I mentioned the fire alarm incident at 4 AM during which Anna and Sophie worked hard to wake me up. Perhaps this is the appropriate time to say THANK YOU Sophie and Anna for saving my life. Just to clarify, I didn't realize the full extent of the situation until last night. Apparently there had been smoke on the second floor and poor Sophie was in a panic and really thought there was a serious fire- so thank you darlings!

And just to make this post even longer, (see the previous post if this is a cause for aggravation), in light of my great expectations gone awry this weekend, perhaps the single most reliable expectation is the expectation of the unexpected (anything else and this weekend might have gone to waste!). But even then, sometimes you get something better than anything you could have ever expected at all!