We’re Home (in York)!

We made it back to York, England on the evening of September 8.  We got off the train and walked to our AirBnB accommodations, dropped everything off, and headed straight out to grab dinner at our favourite low-key pub, Lendel Cellars.  As soon as we got to York, it felt to both Jon and me that we were coming back home.  Every time I visit this town, I have a deep feeling of peace and contentment that washes over me.  York was originally what spurred our desire to move abroad 13 years ago.  It was my dream to live here, and we were going to make it a reality for one year in the future.  However, visa requirements and finances determined that wasn’t going to be the case, and clearly, we have pivoted.  But, we will be staying here until mid-December.  Not nearly long enough in my opinion, but anything short of forever wouldn’t be long enough!

We have been walking all over, reacquainting ourselves with our beloved city and showing the girls all their favourite places from when they came here with us when they were 1.5 years old.  They have no memories of being here, unfortunately, but they love hearing the stories about all the things they used to do here!

It’s been nice to get back to some proper cooking and eating again now that we’re here.  With how hot it was in Spain, we didn’t want to use the oven too much, which limited our meals significantly.  Even just using the stovetop was hard some days with the heat!  Then in Edinburgh, we had no kitchen.  We have been cooking and baking up a storm here.  We did our first homemade cream tea for breakfast this morning (scones with clotted cream and jam, tea, and because we love meat – we also had cooked-up bacon on the side!).  So utterly delicious!  It will become a staple meal for sure.  Tomorrow night we will be attempting our first Sunday roast, complete with Yorkshire puddings.  Looking forward to that deliciousness!

One of my favourite things about York is the walls surrounding the town.  I love walking on them.  It takes us about one hour to do a complete circuit without stopping to look at anything.  Longer when you slow down to take in the informational plaques, views, and other little novelties (e.g. the remains of the Roman walls that are partially excavated and visible from the medieval walls).  We have been out walking the walls many times in this past week since we arrived.  The girls also have come to love walking the walls, as well!

There is so much history here in York.  Founded by the Romans, abandoned by the Romans, later conquered by the Vikings, and then later conquered again by William the Conqueror.  There are Roman, Viking, Medieval, and Victorian era remains here everywhere.  The streets are so cute and most of the core is pedestrian only.  This was once a very important place for the railway and for chocolate and confectionary making and we look forward to taking the girls back to the chocolate museum (York’s Chocolate Story) and railway museum (National Railway Museum) for a tour one day while we’re here.  There are museums, the old castle built by William the Conqueror in 1068 (Clifford’s Tower), an impressive cathedral (York Minster), abbey ruins (St. Mary’s Abbey) complete with a beautiful park, other gorgeous parks, restaurants/pubs/tea shops galore, a beautiful river (River Ouse) that runs through the town, and the Shambles (an old and adorable street) has been practically turned into Diagon Alley from Harry Potter.  There are tons of other touristy things you can do here, like learn alchemy and potion making, magical mini-golf, watch buskers on streets, etc.  This is a small place, considering the population is less than 150,000 but there’s just so much to see and do here, that we have barely scratched the surface one week in!

In addition to walking the walls a lot, we have also walked all the cute streets plenty of times.  We have taken the girls to Jorvik (Viking history museum), Dig (history/archaeology museum where they get to learn about actual archaeological digs from York and dig themselves in re-created dig sites inside the museum from Roman, Viking, Medieval, and Victorian eras), and the York Castle Museum where there’s a ton of different exhibits (our favourite being the re-created Victorian Street).  We have bought annual passes that allow us access to these and other places for our entire stay for a very affordable price, so we will be returning to these places many times and exploring the others we haven’t yet gotten to (including Barley Hall, where we got married in 2011!).

It feels so good to be settled in here in York.  We realize that we leave exactly three months from today.  Which sounds like such a nice, long time.  However, we know it will fly by in the blink of an eye!  But for now, we will continue to soak in as much as we can here in York and hope this air of pure contentment, peace, and joy stays with us the entire time.