Weekend of Vikings and beaches and holes in the ground

so, where to begin?

well, i guess I'll just list.

Friday:
enjoyed a Yorkshire Terrier--my first local brew--with Sarah after work. I drew her a crude map of Los Angeles using two buiness cards, which she now will not give back to me. McDonald's for dinner...yeah. Had door duty that night; since the hostel was full I didn't get much sleep--had to deal with a lot of drunk people stumbling around in the lobby at all hours of the night and morning. I got MAYBE 5 hours of sleep total that night/morning, til it was

Saturday:
Went to the Viking Festival with Naomi and Christine. The town was crowded, muchlike I expect it is every day ofthe summer during tourist season. It was a lot like a Renaissance Faire, lots of fun foods and the occasional person dressed up in Viking garb or at leats wearing the horn helmet. But basically when I go to a festival it's to eat eat eat...so that's what I did. We did do some perusing of traditional Norse arts and crafts in a medieval house called the Barley House whcih normally costs £5 to get in and this day was reduced to £1. We stopped in the Christmas store to buy my plush flower, because after a week I still could not resist the temptation to buy one. It is very cute, its name is either Marjorie or Sunshine (haven't quiet decided).

After that, FOOD TIME. There was an international market with the most amazing selection of foods, all of which it was VERY difficult to pass by. I was disappointed, however, by the lack of any Norse or at least Scandinavian foods. No lefse, no rummegrot, or lutefisk (not that I would have eaten any of that), or Swedish meatballs, or pepparkakor...oh well. I ended up eating a bratwurst. Then we had milkshakes--I had strawberry and Skittles which youd think would be nasty but actaully tasted very good indeed. We then walked over to the Museum Gardens to watch a hundred or two guys dressed in Viking garb stand around and shout (seriously...that's all they did. they said "death to the saxons" and things like that) for about 20 minutes, and then walk off. We headed back tothe market and I bought a French potato-and-bacon dish for dinner. Spent the rest of the evening chatting, playing catch (seriously) in the lobby with Naomi, Sarah and D.J...and we all called it an early night because...

Sunday
was our trip to Whitby! We (myself, Sarah, Becs, Naomi, + Meimei once she joined us) got to Sarah's car (parked at Meimei's house which is about 30 minutes' walk away) at a little after 10, had to stop for gas and oil, and then were on our way finally at around 11. The drive was gorgeous--dramatic English countryside, I finally got to see what a moor looks like. We passed by a HUGE hole called the Hole of Horcum--literally massive, the size of a meteor hole, which we found out later was caused by landslides. We passed over hill and dale (seriously, I'm not just being cute) for about an hour going as fast as Wally (yeah, Sarah named her car. it's a red 1991 VW Golf. im not naming my future car except to call it sarcastic names and insults) could handle, and in a little over an hour we got to Whitby.

What a gorgeous, stereotypical English seaside town. Beautiful cliffs and beaches, with the ruins of the Abbey on the big cliff. The river Esk empties out into the North Sea in Whitby, so you get double the water body, double the fun. More fish-and-chips places than you can shake a stick at, and no shortage of gimmicky attractions such as fortune tellers, wax museums and the like either. I think we picked one of the yummier fish-and-chips places, but it was partially ruined forme only because the music of choice in the place was Sarah Brightman Sings Broadway's Best or some horrible thing. I abhor Sarah Brightman. But the food was excellent. And then I had cotton candy for dessert.

Then, to work off all the grease from the fish-n-chips and the sugar from the cotton candy, we walked the 199 steps to the cliff where St Mary's church adn Whitby Abbey ruins are located. It is in this amazing graveyard dating abck to I would guess the 19th century and a little earlier. The gravetones are mottled and corroded from the salt, which gives them an amazing eerie look. The view was incredible--sea, river, town. Look on my Facebook to see pictures. There was a group of goth-dressed people doing a photo shoot in the graveyard, which cracked us up. They looked like teenagers, doing promo pics for their poser goth band, haha.

Naomi and Sarah did the abbey tour. I probably should have, but wanted to save my money, plus my camera had just broken for good and I wanted to try and mess with it. So Becs and Meimei and I sat in a coffee shop and did a little window shopping. I was now in sadder spirits because my camera is now in bad shape and will probably need expensive repairs. :-(.

We left after that, as it was getting to be near sunset and chilly. It was chilly the whole way home too; it had to be kept cold or the windows would bloody fog up. We hit a spot of traffic on the way back into York--I don't think it even would count as traffic in LA, however. ;-)

Day ended alright. I boxed up my poor camera to be sent back to the US, praying--and I am still praying--that it makes it OK and that it won't be too expensive to repair and that Canon is OK with there not being an original receipt of purchase. SIIIIGH. I ate some chocolate, some dinner and nodded off...the end.