Monday morning we loaded up the car, picked up Dominic, and were soon on our way south to York. The town of York is very quant, which is nice, but it's also damn near impossible to get around in because the streets are really old and all sorts of confusing, which sucks ass. Once we were in the city of York, it took us about forty-five minutes to find our hotel. Luckily, I spotted a very small sign that pointed the way to the place. We also had some very bad directions from the heavily accented French hotel receptionist, who, were later to find out, was very difficult to deal with because he didn't really understand or speak English that well. When we checked in, there was a bit of a snafu because the hotel had somehow gotten some random Visa credit card number as the reservation credit card instead of Nicki's or Karen's. There was even further drama when we checked out because they tried to charge Nicki twice for dinner. Overall, we were not terribly impressed with the Novotel York, to say the least.

The town of York itself was lovely and has all these fun little shops on cobble stone streets. We went first to the Cathedral and decided to pony up the money for the admission fee, although Dom got in free because he's (just) under sixteen and I got a discount as a student. York has really amazing stained glass and absolutely phenomenal buttressed ceilings. Although I would have to say that I prefer Durham for its atmosphere, York a Cathedral on an entirely grand scale. The windows are amazing monumental and intricate. Especially interesting is the rotunda of the Chapter House, with its stone seats all around and stained glass.

After seeing the Cathedral, we wandered through the shops and had tea at this place called Little Betty's. We were excited to find this place because it had been recommended to us by Karen's family, and we just happened to walk by it at tea time. Little Betty's is a well known tearoom in York with a few other Little Betty's in other cities. They even have a little Betty's cooking school where you can learn everything from how to make basics to a variety of chocolate creations. Our Little Betty's experience was nice, but I don't know that the food really lived up to all that. The place itself was really neat, though. The tearoom itself is upstairs in a series of small rooms, with delicate and small tables and chairs. I felt like some giantess about to smash all the china with a careless motion. One neat thing about Little Betty's though, is that they have all sorts of antique teapots in display cases throughout the place. I really wanted this one that had Queen Victoria on the front and another that was a souvenir from the Great Exhibition. Hopefully, I can find a copy somewhere.

mmm. . . . little betty's