And so this is York

While Elise is still sleeping, I will take the opportunity to fill you in on the last day.

The expected arrival time in York was around 13:00, so I had the morning available to get some final work done. Not my most productive half-day it has to be said, what with checking the weather and the plane landing times - it was delayed by an hour - shopping and thinking about how best to organise this and the next days.

In the end I decided to take not the bus but the bike to the station, to leave myself the most logistical freedom. Very probably Elise would want to see the appartment first and unload herself of her luggage; then it would be back to the city straight away. All of which can be done by bus, slowly, or by bike, fast. So my proposal was to hire a bicycle straight away, which you can do at the station, and take the fast option.

The train was on time - shifted by one hour because of the flight - and first we did some hugging. The bicycle scheme was found acceptable: in fact she got a Gazelle, with all the things that as a Dutchwoman you expect a bicycle to have (lights, lock, the works) already attached by default. The trip up and down went very smoothly, although it is clear that E's condition will not allow bicycle tours of any length. The appartment was bigger than the impression she had gotten from my posts (readers: picture it bigger!) and in all ways acceptable.

In the town we ticked off a number of the planned items. Ordering a dinner during the break of the Falstaff opera tomorrow. Getting an extensive lunch at Thirteen Thirty-one. Visiting the Christmas market - a disappointment really, not very festive or even crowded: we were either too early or too late, it was not easy to say. The ice sculpture thing will start tomorrow, and very probabably it will be much more crowded then. A stop at the Bar Convent, which happened to have its Friday session yesterday, for two quick games (Marrakech and Coup), so Elise could get the atmosphere. Then, finally, into the wild Yorkish nightlife that I have not dared to dive into on my own.

I had gotten some tips for bars to visit, with resounding names like the House of the Trembling Madness and the Evil Eye. These turned out to be pretty much next to each other, and both were maskerading as beer/wine shops. Quite peculiar really, and I would never have gone in had I not had these tips: you first had to go through the shop front to the back, respectively the attic, to find the pub.

The HotTM was upstairs in an old timbered attic hung full of (quite possibly fake) hunting trophies, which looked very welcoming (seriously!) but also quite full. The Evil Eye turned out to be more of a cocktail bar, and was in contrast at this hour (19:30 or so) rather empty. We had a bottle of wine there, but since the music was also quite loud, conversation was difficult and there were too few other people to converse about anyway; hence we made another attempt at Trembling Madness. This time we found two stools and had a very enjoyable couple of hours looking at the Christmas crowd.

Since Elise had had a long day, and the bonus of an additional hour, we did not make it a very late night - quite late enough, in fact. There will be two more days to enjoy, after all. The weather looks to be friendly: it is quite warm for a start, and for Sunday the forecast is sunny, the current plan is to rent a car then and drive around, probably up to Whitby. We'll see how things develop.

Which brings me back to this morning, Saturday. I had a not very restful night on the magical air mattress (which I had not let swell up quite enough), then a run this morning, now it's time to bake some eggs and get Elise up!