York — Friday 23 September

Today, again, started at what I consider to be an unholy hour. The five of us from flat 1 who are study abroad/exchange (Flo (german guy upstairs), Josie (australian girl downstairs), Conor (american guy downstairs), Jessi (german roommate), and I set off to the bus stop at 8:05-ish, and ended up having to run to catch the 8:14 bus. Almost all the internationals were on the same bus, so it was a little cramped. Falling over wasn't really an option, which was nice.

The coach was in the same spot as it was for the Metrocentre trip, and Jessi and I had taken Dramamine beforehand. It lasted the whole trip.
After a much longer ride than to Metrocentre, we arrived in York. As promised by Adam, it was the most british city in England. Of course, I've only seen about two cities, if you count Heathrow terminal 5, but it was still nice.

The driver is just out of frame to the right. I'm used to looking for cars from the other direction, but driving is still frightening.

York's Minster Cathedral was the first thing we saw after getting off the bus.

Lovin' the woodcut. I think it's for a haunted house.

It's so... Old.

I kept thinking he was flipping everyone off.

Much prettier from the inside.

See? Very pretty.

It's really frigging tall.

This was across the road.

The bicycles made me think of pre-Colombian schoolbuses and wheelbarrows (inside joke with the second El Salvador mission)

Minster actually had a fire, which resulted in £1m worth of damage.

If you hadn't guessed already, it's catholic.

Even if I disagree in many ways with the catholic church, they're still beautiful.

"A plaque on both your houses."
Bonus points for anyone who can tell me the book that quote's in.

Lighting candles- another beautiful, flawed tradition.

Dead guy that wasn't important enough to be behind the pay wall.

Sundial, very useful. It would have been right but for daylight savings.

See? Paywall. Possibly because of the restoration.

More unimportant dead guys.

I could have stood outside, craning my neck, for a long time. This place is huge and gorgeous.

Indolent Roman outside Minster.

I hear that the streets here are very british.

Starbucks... under a building that's probably hundreds of years old. 

Every street should have a lady watching over it.

After all the comments about how York looks like a place in Harry Potter, I had to take a picture of this.

I'm at Rohan... Where is Karl Urban with epic armour and flowing blonde hair?

Try taking that home on the plane... 

Classic.

Another church.

Random courtyard full of headstones.

Also an owl mosaic.

I think the word I'm looking for is "picturesque" 

A house like a poorly-contrived jigsaw puzzle assembled by fifth graders.

This picture tipped on its side gave me the worst vertigo... 

Small and cramped... I like to visit, but I don't think I'd want to live there. People do, though... 

"Blackbeard's Tea Party"

Bad lighting, pretty building. The silhouette isn't bad. 

Better lighting. I think it might be a courthouse or something, because the fire department is attached to it.

It used to be a fortress of some kind, I think. Perfect spot for one... 

Big ornate building... for Subway.

A really old river with really old buildings smack up against it. 

Classic lampost. I feel like this may have been the one from The Magician's Nephew.

Clock tower.

The gates close at dusk.

All that for a cinema (theatre means live stage)

Aww, random gate.

All that to-do for a couple of holes in the wall... Also known as cash points, also known as ATMs.

We ate lunch at Castle Tea Rooms, which is basically a tiny little lunch place. I got a huge bowl of roasted parsnip soup with bread and tea for less than £5, which surprised me.
After lunch, we went to see the York Brewery. I wasn't too excited about it, but I hardly wanted to break off from my little group, get lost, and miss the bus.
It was cool to see the brewery, even if it stank of booze, yeast, and chlorine. The tour guide was this man who reminded me of a Rolling Stone with a teensy bit more weight on him. He had an accent kind of like Mr. Beaver from the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe movie. Apparently, he's been working at this brewery for 10 years and hasn't missed a day. Also, if someone's last name is Brewster, they probably lived in England back in the day on a farm. I didn't get any pictures because I don't like beer.
We ended up spending about three hours in the brewery's little pub thing. I still don't like beer or its smell, but it's less offensive to me than it was. The pub was actually a lovely place to sit and talk, once you got used to the smell.
We left the brewery at 4 to get back to the coach by 4:30, our scheduled departure time. On the way, I realised that lunch had been a long time and two long walks away, so we stopped in a little takeaway place. I got a scone with "jam and cream", which turned out to be a polygonal (at least 6 sided) biscuit-thing with jam that turned out to be cherry and what I believe was clotted cream. The cream was like sweetened whipped cream that has been sitting out for a bit – slightly runny, but still really good.
We were among the last to get back to the coach, and I took another Dramamine just in case. On the ride back, my only problem was the crick in my neck and Flo (german guy upstairs) being loud in the back.
Since we got back half an hour before the bus, Josie, Conor, Jessi, and I decided to walk back. We stopped at Aldi along the way, and I got microwave cheese and onion pasties as well as some tomatoes, fun-size apples, and orange juice "with bits" even though it was more expensive.

Sunset over Sunderland

They don't believe in street signs, preferring to paint street names on the buildings where you can't see them.

I made one of my cheese and onion pasties for dinner, and I think the one I had at the Gregg's in the Gateway was better. However, any port in a storm... Around 21:00 (9PM), Josie's boyfriend James finally got here from London, and Jessi mashed the potatoes, to her eternal delight. James, who I believe is named after the shopvac in the second-floor closet, is a really nice guy. He also complimented Jessi's potato-mashing skills, marking him as a good person forever.

Orientation day 2 – Tuesday 20 September

Tuesday started off with crepes, as usual. I was determined to keep my record, and I did indeed succeed (sorry about the rhyme). I had purchased some raspberry jam at Asda (Azder, in Northern British), so I was pretty excited. It was only after I had mixed everything up that I remembered the olive oil that I didn't have. I figured that at least one crepe should be tried. And it worked! I think it's actually better than with olive oil, unfortunately. It does take a little longer. 

We headed off as a flat (so, Jessi, Josie, Conor, and me, since Flo was sick, Michaela is in a different programme, and Adam is british) to the treasure hunt set up instead of a city tour, but we got lost. Half an hour later, we decided to not go meet up with everyone else, and went on a walk to the St. Peter's campus across the river. We took the metro, and walked past lots of interesting buildings.

Seen on our way to Uni... Just an ancient wall, no big deal.

Huge, epic building with a tower. What does it house?

It houses Hi-Performance Auto Centre.

Is that tower part of St. Peter's, the church housing the oldest stained glass window in England? Actually, no. It's still cool, though.

The Wheat Sheaf Hotel

The legendary double-decker bus. It nearly killed Conor.

Definitely not St. Peter's, but there was a funeral.

Ah. St. Benet's. 

Sketchy gate on the back of St. Benet's... 

The non-St. Peter's tower is really cool.

St. Peter's. As it turns out, there is no tower at all. Some ancient church this is...

At the end of our walk, we found the National Glass Centre, which has been glommed onto Sunderland's St Peter's Campus. Apparently, some bishop brought the first coloured glass craftsman to england from france or wherever to his bishopric, Sunderland. When "they" were deciding where to build a glass museum and studio for all of england, this history was taken into account. Unfortunately, the whole thing went under as soon as it opened. People, including the University, donated money, but it didn't help. So, the University bought the Centre and incorporated it into its Fine Arts programme. 

Chimneys for the furnaces.

Er... 

Josie and Conor walking across the roof.

Lovely view of the city

Lighthouse! For you, Mom.

I walked on the glass, as per their polite instruction.

More view. The lighthouse is still out there, just smaller.

The River Wear. I think. 

Walking off the roof and into the National Glass Centre.

Part of the "Song of the Sea" exhibit.

Again. I'm still not sure what they were for, but that is a lot of bells.

And again.

And again... 

You guessed it, Song of the Sea.

We got to see a live demonstration of glass blowing, in which Ian from the National Glass Centre made a vase (vahz, which means a really expensive vase to me. This definition certainly applies to a hand-blown glass vase.) while his colleague assisted and narrated.

Road and railroad bridge over the Wear. I believe the Tyne is somewhere nearby, since Sunderland is in Tyne and Wear.

The nuts and bolts of art?

Big bolts... Josie is small, but not that small.

That lovely yellow cube that signifies the end of the walk for a while.

Tracks

The train for Andrew. 

We grabbed a quick lunch (tomato and cheese on whole grain for me) before going to the informational meetings by the police, the UniSport people, the health centre, the library, and the Students' Union. By this time, I was fairly exhausted and had missed half my cup of tea in the morning, so my caffeine levels were dangerously low. I stayed awake for most of the presentations, which were mostly interesting. The policeman had a hilarious video in which lots of puns about sheep and wolves, helped out by the security video of some students dressed as sheep catching fire at a bar. UniSport includes everything from some beginners' classes to helping out potentially professional athletes, and I'm going to look into fencing, or maybe karate. By the time we got to the librarian, however, I was experiencing an incredible amount of nodding off and eye twitching. Finally, during the presentation, I gave up and let myself nod off all the way, although the guy next to me kept trying to jostle my arm. Jerk. I woke up refreshed, and just in time to hear about how last year's biomedical internationals abused the 24/7 library service horribly, and how I alone was responsible for making it up to the library staff. Awesome. 

After this, I went home and slept for about half an hour. It was worth it. Then the flat went to a welcome party at the pub across the street from the building we have orientation in. I wasn't expecting much in the way of vegetarian food, but this startled even me. The couscous-y dish was a little sketchy, so I ended up eating tortilla chips (crisps?) with a sweet and sour salsa, followed by three pieces of garlic bread. Hmph. It was delicious garlic bread, though... 

After leaving the party, we all took the bus home (free for Uni students on route 700), and I had an interesting conversation with a German named Ingman, now known as Ginger (because Ingwer means Ginger, and sounds like Ingman, I guess), and the good-natured butt of many good-natured jokes. He was very interested in the Washington State, Washington DC, Washington UK thing, but I forgot most of what we discussed. 

I decided to skip out on watching a few of my flatmates drink themselves silly in the kitchen, opting to catch up on the blog before falling asleep around 01:00 in preparation for the skype meeting with my family at 07:00 GMT/23:00 PST. 

Unfortunately, my flatmates, who, you may recall, had been drinking, piled into my room (treacherous Jessi let them in, tsk) to sing Happy Birthday to me. I had to blow out a lighter in lieu of candles. Luckily for me, I was close enough to sleep to be mostly bewildered and good natured about the whole thing, and went back to bed with minimal trouble.