England Nov 2024, day 1: Travel and York
Nov. 7th, 2024 10:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
serindePreface: This vacation plan grew out of "go with Beth on a flying weekend to the MEDATS conference", which is in York this year. I loved York when S. and I spent a couple days there about eight years ago, so why not do that again and also learn about medieval textiles? However, since it was so close to our anniversary, it morphed into "S. and I go to York for that flying weekend and then spend the following week in London".
We took a red-eye Wednesday night - frankly, going crazy about last-minute packing interleaved with a work day was a welcome distraction from contemplating the fucking hellscape which our country has opted for - which was redder than anticipated, as our scheduled 9:35pm departure turned into a 1am departure, ugh. Neither of us slept super well on the plane, either (among other things, the power at S's seat went out, so he couldn't use his CPAP). On the bright side, they kindly cancelled the planned Underground strike, so we were able to just roll onto the Picadilly line to Kings Cross.
Because of the extreme delays, we missed the off-peak fares to York and had to pay full whack for our tickets, for a sum that made me stretch my eyes; but the train was a) on time, b) comfortable, and c) fast. We got to York about 5pm, walked the ~15 minutes to the hotel (N.B.: rolling bags on olde tyme cobbled streets are a bit troublesome), and flopped. We had pre-booked dinner at Forest, the restaurant in the hotel, as it had a good reputation without being fancy, and had an excellent meal.
Our internal clocks being completely verkachte, we were both hungry and not-hungry, and didn't want to over-eat. We started with aperitifs - I had what appears to be a local speciality, a "Hugo Spritz", which is prosecco, St. Germain, lime, cucumber, and soda; only I had them add gin, because why wouldn't you put gin in that? We each got a starter: "posh prawn cocktail" pour lui, "Yorkshire Whole Hog" pour me. The former is mixed shellfish (shrimp of various size, tiny scollops, crab bits, etc) in a somewhat rich dressing, with pickled samphire on top. WHY HAS NO ONE TOLD ME ABOUT SAMPHIRE? It's so good; little plant bits that taste like they're made out of salt. Yes please! The "Whole Hog" was a plate with a bit of black pudding, a bit of roast pork belly, and a croquette of ham hock; all of it with an apple chutney. All parts of this were delicious. And then, we split the wild mushroom gnocchi (creamy sauce with thyme and garlic) and a bottle of rosè, which, although a perfectly acceptable wine, was a poor life choice... S. had no dessert but I tucked in a forest-fruit crumble that was quite happy-making.
After dinner, we came upstairs and fell over.
We took a red-eye Wednesday night - frankly, going crazy about last-minute packing interleaved with a work day was a welcome distraction from contemplating the fucking hellscape which our country has opted for - which was redder than anticipated, as our scheduled 9:35pm departure turned into a 1am departure, ugh. Neither of us slept super well on the plane, either (among other things, the power at S's seat went out, so he couldn't use his CPAP). On the bright side, they kindly cancelled the planned Underground strike, so we were able to just roll onto the Picadilly line to Kings Cross.
Because of the extreme delays, we missed the off-peak fares to York and had to pay full whack for our tickets, for a sum that made me stretch my eyes; but the train was a) on time, b) comfortable, and c) fast. We got to York about 5pm, walked the ~15 minutes to the hotel (N.B.: rolling bags on olde tyme cobbled streets are a bit troublesome), and flopped. We had pre-booked dinner at Forest, the restaurant in the hotel, as it had a good reputation without being fancy, and had an excellent meal.
Our internal clocks being completely verkachte, we were both hungry and not-hungry, and didn't want to over-eat. We started with aperitifs - I had what appears to be a local speciality, a "Hugo Spritz", which is prosecco, St. Germain, lime, cucumber, and soda; only I had them add gin, because why wouldn't you put gin in that? We each got a starter: "posh prawn cocktail" pour lui, "Yorkshire Whole Hog" pour me. The former is mixed shellfish (shrimp of various size, tiny scollops, crab bits, etc) in a somewhat rich dressing, with pickled samphire on top. WHY HAS NO ONE TOLD ME ABOUT SAMPHIRE? It's so good; little plant bits that taste like they're made out of salt. Yes please! The "Whole Hog" was a plate with a bit of black pudding, a bit of roast pork belly, and a croquette of ham hock; all of it with an apple chutney. All parts of this were delicious. And then, we split the wild mushroom gnocchi (creamy sauce with thyme and garlic) and a bottle of rosè, which, although a perfectly acceptable wine, was a poor life choice... S. had no dessert but I tucked in a forest-fruit crumble that was quite happy-making.
After dinner, we came upstairs and fell over.
