York: Take Two

Having my mom here during the last 3 months of our time abroad has been great, as I have been able to check off items I've been wanting to do one more time before going home. Jeff and I visited York February 2014, and it is one of my favorite cities in England.

I had York down on our "to visit list", so I could see it one more time before moving home but Jeff and I have been running out of weekends..so I figured we would not make it there. Since I have a traveling buddy this week, I took Mom there! On Thursday, we got on the train for about an hour and a half total.  This was the first time I had to change trains, so that was a little different (but easy to do!).  We rode from Nottingham, but had to get off at another station to catch another train.  It wasn't as painful as I thought it was going to be! We made it into York in one piece and stopped by a pub for some warm lunch.  Mom tried a burger and I gave into my favorite British classic, sausage & mash. The restaurant was adorable, filled with British themed decor. 

After lunch we walked to one of my favorite cathedrals of all time.  York Minster, is one of the most beautiful churches in England. I personally think it is better than Westminster Abbey.  Half of England's stained glass is in this church alone, so you can imagine how beautiful inside it is with the sun shining through the windows. We were in the church for about an hour a half. We enjoyed learning about the reconstruction, which will take 10 years to complete as each process is intricate and time consuming.  One slab of brick on the outside (just a general rectangular prism) takes a week to perfect.  The stone with faces and more detail takes over a month...just one piece! It was really interesting seeing it all, especially the up close look at the stained glass they are fixing on one side of the building.  They were beautiful, and it was cool to see the story behind each piece.  The part they are renovating is the size of a tennis court...so you can imagine it will take a long time to complete.

  Not the best shot of the outside of York Minster, given so much is under construction.

 Just a couple of the stained glass windows throughout the church

A 1,000 year old book about the life of Jesus. Beautiful display. One of my favorite pictures!

After the church, we walked the beautiful streets. It was filled with various shops, restaurants, and for the most part---car free, which is nice.  We popped into a couple shops and I was overly excited to show her "Debbie's Bakery" which Jeff and I found last year when we went for the first time.  See her adorable picture below...isn't my mom so cute? 

I still can't get over how awesome it is that my mom is here!

We walked up the street to walk the City of York Walls around the city.  It is a little over 2 miles long, although I'm guessing we didn't do the whole thing...given it didn't take us very long to walk the "entire" thing.  It was fun just walking on the walls, seeing the beautiful views, and chatting with my mom.  We took a few more pictures of the city and then went back to the train station to head home.  Two train rides later, we were home by 8:00PM.  It was a long day, but so worth it so show off one of my favorite cities in England.  I know my mom enjoyed it, as she enjoyed comparing this city with others in England and Scotland.

 Just one of the many beautiful views in York

Our walk along the wall

 One of the last of my favorite photos

On to the next adventure...

#1 Birthday Weekend....Ever!

How spoiled am I that we spent my 28th birthday weekend looking at this...

 View from the terrace at our hotel

Dubrovnik, Croatia was one of my Top 3 places to visit while we are living over here. Jeff decided the perfect time to go was around my birthday.  We got up around 2:45 AM, and were at the Manchester Airport to fly out by 5:30.  We got into Dubrovnik, found our beautiful hotel, went into the city, grabbed lunch, and....it starting storming.  We rushed back to our hotel to wait out the storm.  Ended up working out well that we could take a quick nap since we got up so early.  Later that evening we went back out to explore the Old Town (a walled city).  We then fulfilled every child's dream...ice cream for dinner!  Jeff and I walked around the old city eating our ice cream.  We found some places we wanted to explore more in the morning. We walked north of the Old Town to just explore more of the city. We made it to a marina filled with boats, which was pretty cool.  

 View from our hotel window

View from the hotel window...beautiful clear water!

Sidenote: Cats.  I thought Italy was known for the amount of cats on the city streets, but I think I found a place to beat that record.  There was a crazy amount of cats walking around the city.  No matter where we were, like a side of a cliff...there was always a cat around.  A couple adorable kittens (one of which was all black, like Mackey) wandered the streets as well.  All the cats looked like they were in good condition, whether they belonged to someone or not. I just kept walking around the city think of Bob Barker. Yes, you heard me, Bob Barker. I kept picturing him saying "Have your pets spayed and neutered." Dubrovnik needs this...

Back on track. We woke up and went into the Old Town where we walked the city walls.  As you can tell in the pictures, the Old Town was enclosed by walls.  You can walk on top of the walls and boy is it beautiful! It took us about 2 hours to get around it, and that was stopping for a beer about half way through.  It was really fun walking around, and probably one of our favorite things we did while we were there. 

 Could get a little chilly and windy at times. "All you need is a light jacket."--Name that movie!

Great view of the wall we walked around in the Old Town

 At another fortress that has a great view of the city and the Old Town Wall

 The Croatian flag

If we were there longer, it would have definitely been great to go out on a boat!

We headed back to the hotel to go to the hotel's private beach (About mid-60's). We grabbed lunch seaside at the hotel restaurant, and then we laid around reading until the sun was hidden by the large cliffs.  This was perfect timing to head up to Mount Srdj, the 412 meter (350 feet) high mountain. We braved the cable cars, as the walk up the mountain would have took for-ever! Not a huge fan of cable cars, but this one was definitely better than the one we rode in Barcelona. Not nearly as scary.  We made it to the top, went to to Fort Imperial.  This fort was a crucial part during the 1991 war, and much of it is still in shambles.  It was crazy to look from the west side of the fort, as it was beautiful, beach-filled Dubrovnik.  The east side was Bosnia, which was mountainous and bare.  The fort was turned into a museum, but a lot of the material presented wasn't in English. Needless to say, I  lost focus.

 The Bosnia side of the mountain

 The Croatia side of the mountain

We ate at the top, Restaurant Panorama, where I had the best Bailey's coffee ever. Jeff was checking off a few new beers off the count. For those of you who know our goal, I will look at our count later, and get back to you.  We had a great time watching the sunset over the city.  We grabbed an "linner" (lunch+dinner), as the sun was setting around 4:30!  We took the cable car back down, enjoyed another chilly night in the city, and headed back to the hotel.  

Our beautiful view for dinner & drinks

The next morning, we went down to the beach for a few hours.  The feeling of relaxing on a beach, reading a book felt amazing.  Are my snow-filled Indiana friends/family closing their computers at this point? Sorry!  Jeff and I both finished our books, and put our feet in the cold Adriatic Sea.  Well, Jeff braved it and got all the way in. I was a chicken. 

After our beach-filled morning, we went back into the city to check out a bar on a cliff and walk around the city one last time.  We had a few beers at Buza Bar (Buza=hole, not Booze). We grabbed a seat right in front, and enjoyed the view.  It was great to see sailboats, kayaks, ships, etc. go by in front of us.  Besides the cultural side of walking around the walls, I really enjoyed this afternoon.  It was so relaxing! 

 Best view in the house!

So stinkin' pretty, right?

We ended our time in Dubrovnik by walking to a restaurant outside of the city walls and getting a "jumbo" pizza.  I'm not sure if I was just so hungry or what...but it was one of the best pizzas I have ever had (pepperoni, hot peppers, Tabasco, arugula, sauce, and a couple kinds of cheese). We ate the entire thing, and headed back towards the hotel.  

 Beautiful view on our way to the pizza place

 And yes, we ate the last piece! Yum!

Once the sunset, we went on a long walk to the Cave Bar (One of the Top 5 Hotel Bars in the World). It was really impressive, as stalactites were still hanging from the ceiling.  You could also see through the cave floor in one spot of the bar where the water flowed. Really cool!  It was definitely a long walk to this hotel bar, but definitely worth it. 

 This "hallway" leads into the room in which you could see the floor. 

(People were in there, so I couldn't snap a photo)

 The entrance from the outdoor seating

I leave you with an odd picture.  We were walking late in the city on our first day, and found this picture... Many of my loyal readers know my new-found fascination with the world of eggs over here. Bet you have never seen eggs in a pop-like machine! 

Overall, I was very grateful to spend my birthday weekend celebrating with Jeff in this beautiful destination. Thank you to all of you who sent cards, messages, emails, etc. for my birthday.  You definitely made me feel right at home! Love you all! 

Want to come along, too? Check out this interactive website I found!

Onto the next adventure...

Thanks Berlin. I Needed a New Phone Anyway...

Let me explain and get the only negative comment out of the way here in the beginning of my post. Within the first hour of being in Berlin, we lost my US cell phone. We weren't pick-pocketed; it was just pure dumb bad luck and stupidity. We were using WiFi at a hotel in hopes to see a map on where our real hotel was located. We think it fell out of a pocket, and we didn't notice it was missing until about 5 minutes later when we were walking down the street. We quickly went back, but could not find the phone. Not sure if at that point someone found it and took it. On the plus side, it was malfunctioning and you couldn't get past the unlock button easily anymore. I switched all my account passwords, and my pictures automatically update to an online portal. So not much was lost, and I still have my UK phone.

Now onto the good stuff...

Berlin was officially our favorite trip (minus the phone mishap). It was such a beautiful and modern city.  We spent our first afternoon exploring the city, eating street food, and walking until our legs almost fell off. Our trip here in Berlin was definitely filled with street food (sausages, pretzels, and beer). Yum, there is just something about street food that makes me so happy. Can you tell that I go crazy at the State Fair?

After filling out bellies full of currywurst (cut up sausage with a curry sauce) and beer, we headed to the Berlin wall.  Underneath the wall was lined with information about the historical events before/after the wall was torn down.  We really enjoyed reading the facts and seeing all of the photographs.

We also ventured out into the city to see the other historical buildings and monuments. We walked through this beautiful park that was similar to Central Park in NYC. In the middle was the Victory Monument. We headed back through the park to see the Soviet War Monument, Brandenburg Gate, Potsdamer Platz, and the Reichstag (Parliament).

 Brandenburg Gate

 Reichstag

 Soviet War Monument

 Victory Monument

Day Two started bright and early with a visit Checkpoint Charlie. We snagged a photo before the crowds were filled and the actors came back to play their part. There isn't much else to see in this area, but a few museums going into more detail about the division.

 

Next was to the Berlin Cathedral. Jeff thoroughly enjoyed it as he had a nifty little audio guide that he listened to as we toured the church.  He loves those audio guides! I, on the other hand, do not have the attention span to get me through my own guided tour. We were both able to tour the building and then climb to to the top to get a great view of the city.

 Outside of the Cathedral 

Beautiful, right? 

 Inside of the the cathedral and Jeff with his audio guide.  

 The views from the top of the dome. One cool fact we learned was that one of the men building the dome filled one of the gold balls on top of the mini-domes with newspapers from that date. 

You can see the TV Tower and how much taller it is from the dome even!

After the church, we grabbed some breakfast on the Spree, which was beautiful. We walked up and down the spree, had a beer at these "beaches" near the river. Then we took an hour-long boat cruise down the Spree, which was one of our favorite things we did.

 Enjoying some "beach" time next to the Spree. 

 Lovin' the boat tour! 

Riding in style down the Spree

Jeff and I headed to the top of the Berlin TV Tower which is 617 feet high and it one of the tallest towers in the world. It only took 40 seconds to get to the top in the elevator. They wouldn't let us walk to the top of this one. haha! We were able to see some great views of the city and pick out some new destinations to try to go and visit. We thought about having dinner at the top, as it rotates just like the Eagles Nest in Indianapolis. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped to get some chocolate at a local shop. Although we weren't the best at ordering, we ended up with a few we really liked!

Top of the TV Tower

The amazing chocolate shop. Jeff may have taken a picture, but they recreated some of the monuments, boats, etc. out of chocolate and placed them in the window. Really cool!

Before we hit the 5-hour train ride to Prague we attempted to visit the 2nd Largest Department Store in Europe...unfortunately it was closed because it was Sunday. We took some pictures....of the outside.

 

I pretty much disliked the majority of the train ride to Prague. Although it was beautiful, being in a space like that for 5 hours was not my cup of tea. Jeff, on the other hand, loved the train ride. At least we were smart and bought some extra chocolate to enjoy on the long ride.

Jeff with his 39% milk chocolate...I got 60% dark chocolate. 

Be on the lookout for the Prague post soon! Xx