England Travels: York

Friday, April 13, 2018.

York. Not the New one, the old school one. The one with the peppermint patties.

We drove back to Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, and I was trying to make the GPS go. The road in front of the train station is one way, and there are limited ways to get there. The GPS lied to us a bit and we wound up going over the Tyne Bridge. But we were able to turn around, get back and make it to the Enterprise (pronounced "Alamo") rental office. I took care of the car return and Stephanie went to get the tickets. When I rented the car, they told me to just put as much gas in it as it had when I rented it, which was less than ⅛, so he said "as long as there's anything in it, that'll be fine."

So I had to get gas (or petrol or rather diesel, as I found out when trying to fill it up...I was concerned I was about to put disel in a car that took gasoline, despite the sticker suggesting I should use only diesel, and then wreck it). But it's in pounds (sterling) per liters (or litres), and I didn't know how far we'd be driving or what the car's mileage was or how big the tank was. I was thinking that I could assume at worst the car got 20 miles/gallon, then convert miles per hour to kilometers per hour, then figure the distance we might travel, converted to kilometers, and then figure out how many liters that would be, divide by the current conversion rate of pounds to cubic dollars per hecto-fortnight, to figure out how much gas (fuck, diesel, I think) it needed. Then I decided 10 gallons is a nice number. There's 4 quarts to a gallon. A liter is about a quart, actually a bit more. So just put in 40 liters, put it on my credit card and try not to think about how much it's costing.

Since we didn't go to Hadrian's Wall and didn't do that much driving, it had significantly more gas (whatever, just call it fuel!) in it than when I got it. They noticed that when they checked in the car. Now here's the weird part (for someone from the US). In the US they might have told me to say, essentially, "thanks for the donation," but here they said that clearly I overpaid. Since I wasn't going to be back anytime soon, coupons and discounts wouldn't be of use. But since I had put the rental on a credit card and I had it with me, they credited £20 back to my credit card. I was pretty (pleasantly) surprised. While I still spent more money than needed, it was still beyond what I was expecting.

I should mention that the train was scheduled to leave in about 6 minutes, so I was getting a little edgy about finishing up all the paperwork (and they were having trouble with their printer and such). Anyway, with that complete, I thanked them and left. The train station was 30 feet away, and Stephanie told me that the train was going to be 10 minutes late, she had the tickets, and we didn't have to run. We got on the train and headed to York.

In York, I left my suitcase at a place called Left Luggage so I wouldn't have to cart it around all day. Then we explored the old town, the wall around the town, the Shambles (narrow street area with lots of shops), ruins of various things, and more. Pictures of York activies are below.

At the end of the day, we retrieved my bag and met Stephanie's aunt and uncle at the train station.

2018 England trip pictures

Part 1: The Arrival
Part 2: Cambridge (Part 1)
Part 3: Newcastle-Upon-Tyne
Part 4: Alnwick
Part 5: York
Part 6: Sutton Bank
Part 7: Thirsk
Part 8: Helmsley and Rievaulx

Part 9: Backyard Blacksmith Workshop
Part 10: Bagby Airfield
Part 11: Byland Abbey
Part 12: National Railway Museum
Part 13: Cambridge (Part 2)
Part 14: Cambridge Botanical Gardens
Part 15: The Departure

Displaying all 60 pictures

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