York

I spent last weekend visiting Chelsea in York. She's going to York St John University. Basically, she's going to Hogwarts. Different sets in the Harry Potter films are based on locations in York, including The Shambles. So, yes, Chelsea is in Harry Potter land, and I'm rather envious. 

The picture accompanying this post is The Minster in York. It's huge, to say the least. Chels's university is just on the other side of the wall from the Minster. (My university is just across the street from a graveyard, if you'd care to make a comparison.) Because I had to pay to go into The Minster, I took a ridiculous amount of photographs - several of which are on my Flickr site. 

While in York, I went to a pub to watch my first rugby match. I still don't understand exactly understand the sport, nor the indescribable fanaticism. I nearly went deaf each time England did anything remotely good. Chels and I were there with the only three people in the pub supporting France - possibly because the girls are from France. They got lots of glares every time they started cheering. Needless to say, I don't get excited by sport. I think those days have definitely passed. 

Chels and I also discovered the wonder of flavoured rock candy. It's not the stuff that looks like crystals on a stick (or the sculpture outside the Akron U polymer building). It's just a hard candy with a really good flavour. I bought a bag of it on a whim and had to go back again before I left York to get myself a bit more. It's incredibly addicting. The shop also had a lot of fun chocolates. Unlike the typical chocolate bunny you'd get someone for Easter in the states, you could buy a chocolate duck (with a top hat), fish, car, mobile phone, dog, etc.  

We also had a fun night of discovering that Chels's dorm does not have a stove or oven, despite having several kitchens. So the frozen pizza was cooked in the microwave. It came out pretty well, for the most part. It was edible and it was pizza, and when you combine those, it can't be bad. Frozen garlic bread, however, is not as easy to cook in microwaves... 

In other news of Leicester goodness, the fire alarm went off in one of the buildings I have classes in, but, unfortunately, went off right after my seminar had ended. Perhaps someone felt a floor vibrate and triggered the alarm in fear of another earthquake. Whatever it was, the timing was terrible and my ears did not appreciate it.