JANUARY 6, 2004
We got into Victoria Station about 7:00. We then had to catch the subway to Kevin's. It is like going home. We left Kevin's about 5 1/2 months ago. It also feels good to be in an "English" speaking country. The only thing is that I don't always understand their English, but I love the accent.
Kevin was home and he was cooking. Chicken dumplings. It was delicious.
December 30, 2003
Laurie and I took the subway about 11:15 to Victoria Station. That was where we had to catch a bus to York at 1:00.
It was a five hour bus ride. It was a full bus, so there was no room to spread out. We made one stop about 1 1/2 hours before we were to get to York. I was very hungry so I got a McFlurry for a snack.
We arrived in York at 6:00 and our friend, Pete, met us there at the station. It was great to see him. We haven't seen him since July 10th.
Pete brought us home and cooked us dinner. We had a pork stir-fry with green beans, mushrooms, and rice. It was very good.
After cleaning up the dinner mess we walked to a pub. It was about a 15 minute walk. His friend, Steve, met us there. We had a couple of drinks and walked back.
December 31, 2003
It was a cold brisk morning and we went for a walk along the river. It was a nice day and eventually it warmed up. We walked back into town. We had a few hours to kill before Pete had to pick up his daughter and boyfriend at the train station. So we stopped at a tea house. I had the typical snack of a scone with clotted cream and jam. This is not the land of low fat stuff!
We walked around town. It is Wednesday and there are tons of people milling around. I didn't know if it is because of it being New Years Eve and people have the day off or not. Pete said it is usually pretty busy no matter when, but especially during tourist season. Darn those tourists!!
I went into a craft store and Pete spotted a cross-stitch of the Coast-to-Coast walk we did. I thought it would be a great gift to do for Laurie. It was expensive, but I bought it and another one. It would be a bad price in US dollars, but when you convert pounds to dollars it is horrible. We have to pay $1.80 to get one pound. It had gone up since we were here last.
We walked back to the car and went to the train station to pick up Jo and Danny, Pete's daughter and boyfriend. She was down in Kent and Glarcester visiting relatives for the holiday. We dropped them off at her home.
We had to go to the grocery store for our New Year's Eve dinner. Pete tried to make reservations for us somewhere, but everything was booked. I told him it was much better being at home anyways.
Pete cooked a terrific traditional dinner of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. We had roasted potatoes, carrots, brussel sprouts, and leeks with it. Very good. Yorkshire pudding is really not pudding, but like a popover, except I like this better than popovers.
For the evening we were going to go out to a pub, but we decided to stay and watch a video Pete had. It was Spiderman. I had heard it was good so I wanted to see it. That lasted until about 11:30. When it was over, Pete looked outside and saw that it was snowing. So we decided to walk up to the York Minster Abbey, where everyone gathers for midnight. The snow was quite wet and slushy. Everyone was out walking to the Abbey. It made the sidewalk very slippery.
We got to the Abbey about 15 minutes before midnight. The square was filled with people. Lots of young kids drinking up a storm. At midnight the church bells went off. I could hardly hear them because
everyone was so loud. It was a neat way to bring in the New Year and one I will remember. That is because most of mine are not very memorable. I am usually sleeping.
We walked back to Pete's. We were quite wet by the time we got back there. When we got back we had some of Pete's homemade bread and butter. We sat and watched TV for awhile and I went to bed around 2:00.
