Yes, that is the cake. It was a pirate ship, complete with edible treasure chest and chocolate coins. The deck was made of chocolate and the hull was delicious cake. Good times all around...Flower invited us to go to York with him to hang out with his home friends. I said yes, wanting to take advantage of seeing a new place. York was amazing. Easily the most beautiful place that I've seen in England. Thousand year old ruins spring up in the parks, the shopping center is paved with really nice stone paths while the shops themselves are 18th and 19th century works of art.
No matter which direction you turn, you can see a castle. Everything was incredibly picturesque, which is ironic, because just as the sun was setting, my camera died..:-(
I did get these shots of the city, however...
I will definitely return to York just to take pictures, it's that awesome. There were so many places that I looked and said to myself, "That would be an amazing picture," but we were moving around quickly to catch up with people so I didn't get the opportunity...While in the shopping place, we saw this guy playing electric violin. He was using effects pedals and loops to jam with himself on classic rock songs. The highlight came when he played Shine On You Crazy Diamond by Pink Floyd, using his pedals to create tons of texture and then showing off his improvisation ability by playing over what he had created. I took a short video of this, but not enough to get the full grasp of what was going on.
We then took a bus to Leeds and went to a coffee shop/music venue and watched people and bands perform in a basement type venue. It was much different than in America, as there was more electronica and dancing then what would happen at home. Still, it was really cool, we ended up staying until about 5 AM...At this point, the trip transformed from "really cool new experience in foreign place with lots of nice and interesting things" to "holy crap this is awful but it'll round out my story of this trip and make it more interesting". I say this because we had to return to the bus station and wait for a bus back to York. For three hours. The bus station opens at 5 AM, but buses don't start running until 8 AM. Our bus was to arrive at 8:45. So, we waited. And waited. And the electronic doors were jammed and left open. So it was cold. Really cold. For three hours.
So here we are huddled against the radiator at about 6:30 AM...
That shadow around us may look like a photoshop effect, but it's actually the freezing cold closing in while the radiator fought it off, creating an orb of relative warmth...So the bus finally came and we took it to the York train station so that we could get back to Newcastle. This was another 45 minute wait, but at least it was warmer. While waiting around, I found the next installment of "Really Weird English Litter"...
I was sitting in the train station and I look over to find a creamer perched on the end chair. Not carelessly thrown on the floor or spilled on the cushion, but placed delicately on the top of the cushion. Weird...Also...
Yes, we were bored enough to make that joke...So we arrived back in Newcastle about 24 hours after we had left, having explored two new cities. Awesome experience overall, I'll definitely be going back to York for more pictures, but, until then, I'll keep finding new places to go..:-)
-Matt
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