The day after the kids finally got out of school for the summer we made our way to York. The actual destination, Castle Howard where my triathlon was, is about half an hour outside of York. But I waited too long to book accommodation for the weekend near the Castle (which is so unlike me as I'm usually known as "the planner" by my friends back home) that everything was booked by the time I got around to it. So I looked at getting something in the city of York and I'm so glad I did...what an awesome place!
It took us about 2 hours to get to York by car and once we got checked into the hotel we hit the streets for some sightseeing. It only took us about 15 minutes to walk into the city center from the hotel. The first thing we did was to grab some lunch. Admittedly, it's the first thing I always want to do when we arrive somewhere new...eat. We found a pasty place where I pledged to make some from scratch when I got home. I mean seriously...what's better than meat and potatoes wrapped in pastry and then baked in the oven? It was such a beautiful day; everyone was out. Eating, shopping, cycling and strolling along the flower lined streets. It was the epitome of a European summer day.
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| Me and my pasty! |
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| York Minster |
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| Monday morning commute! |
The first thing we decided to do after lunch was head to the York Railway Museum. Not my first choice of places to go, but gotta keep the kids happy sometimes. It actually turned out to be quite neat because they had several coaches from Queen Mary and Queen Victoria's reign that they used. Unfortunately they didn't let you go into any of them. WHAT?!? Something representing royalty and I can't go in? And to make matters worse, they had them blocked off because they were setting up for a wedding. So I couldn't even get up close to peer inside the windows. It was like they were adding salt to my wounds. Oh well, I'll just ogle from afar. They did have some cool demonstrations for the kids relating to the science behind how trains work as well as a demonstration on how the turntable worked by moving a massive steam locomotive by just a hand crank.
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| Steve and Jack playing dress up |
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| Queen Mary's engine |
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| Part of City Wall on the right |
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| The Monk Bar |
As we headed to the The Viking Center we walked down a street called Shambles. It's a street, still kept like how it was back when it was first constructed in the 14th century. Narrow, small shops below with low ceilings and the sides of the buildings teetering precariously towards the center. It was once known as The Great Flesh Shambles from the word Fleshammels (meaning 'flesh-shelves'), the word for the shelves that butchers used to display their meat. As recently as 1872 there were twenty-five butchers' shops in the street but now there are none. "Shambles" is an obsolete term for an open-air slaughterhouse and/or meat market. During that period there were no sanitary facilities or hygiene laws like there are today, so guts and blood from the meat houses were thrown into a groove down the middle of the street and washed away with water. Nowadays, any scene of total disorganization and mess is now referred to as, "a shambles". And there you go!
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| The Shambles |
The street was actually voted Britain's Most Picturesque Street in 2010. The buildings and cobbles on the street are all still original, well as best as they can be from that long ago. Pictures almost don't do it justice...it was the coolest little street. This is also where we got our family photograph taken. Perhaps we can use this in our 2012 Christmas cards?
The Viking Center is just what its name implies; the history of the Vikings as they settled in York. The museum is built on the site of an actual Viking village. Archaeologists discovered the site back in 1976 and for the next 5 years they excavated the area to discover an entire Viking-age city dating back over 1,000 years. It was pretty cool, because they kept a section of what they unearthed and built a glass floor over it so you actually walked over the footings of what was once a Viking home. You could see the hearth and how the walls of the house were laid out.
They combined the museum with a ride and you got into these little movable carriages that took you around a replica Viking city. It was sort of museum meets Disneyland. Along the way you could see people (mechanical people to be exact) working in the village, bartering for goods, making pottery, etc. There was an audio portion in the little carriages that explained the scenes as we went along. There was even a guy that was in a wooden hut "doing his business". The kids thought that was hilarious as the audio described sanitary life in the Viking age. Little did we know that part would tie back into something we got to see later in the museum.
After the ride we got to look at skeletons they found at the site. They had them analyzed and were able to determine the build of the people and how they lived/worked based on how the bones looked. For example they had one set that they were able to figure out that not only was it a woman, but that she had a break in a bone of her right leg which caused her to limp so her hips were not aligned properly. And that the use of some type of crutch most of her life caused her shoulders to form slightly crooked. Pretty cool. Well, not for her, but for us to have the ability to determine that with modern medicine and equipment.
Now here's were the "guy doing his business" comes back into play. Turns out that during the excavation they found some, umm...poo. That's right, poo. From a grown man that had preserved itself over the centuries. They had the actual poo, in a case, all lit up for everyone to see. I'm sure that guy never, in a million years, would've thought that thousands of people a day would walk past a glass case admiring and taking pictures of his poop. The kids said "Mom, you have GOT to put that in your blog!" Requested noted, and done. :)
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| Viking poop |
Some interesting facts from the brochure:
York’s chocolate factories and confectionery companies were founded by three families; Rowntree’s, Terry’s and Craven's.
Rowntree’s dates all the way back to Mary Tuke, who in 1725 set up a grocery business. In 1746, Mary’s 14 year-old nephew joined her as an apprentice. When Mary died he inherited the business and began to specialize in importing tea and manufacturing cocoa and chocolate. As the business grew Henry Isaac Rowntree joined the Tuke family business as an apprentice and in 1862 took over the chocolate side of the business. Joined by his brother Joseph Rowntree, Jr. in 1869, Rowntree’s turned its fortunes around and began manufacturing Pastilles and Fruit Gums. The family took its Quaker roots to heart by taking an active interest in the welfare of their workers and the community. In 1988 Rowntree’s was taken over by Nestle, who still manufacture many of the brands which Rowntree began in York and the UK today.
The Terry family also played a major role in the confectionery business in York. The company was originally founded by Joseph Terry in the 19th century. After his death his three sons went on to set up the world-renowned Joseph Terry & Sons. During the 20th century the business was passed through the generations of the family and has created a legacy through its products such as the Terry’s Chocolate Orange (yes that's right Gina!) and Terry’s All Gold. Since then the Terry’s brand has changed hands many times and is now owned by Kraft.
Mary Ann Craven is central to the story of Craven’s confectionery business success. Mary Ann’s father Thomas Hick started the business in York in 1822. Mary Ann was the youngest of Thomas’s three children and went on to marry Master Confectioner Thomas Craven and when Mary’s father died the couple took on the family business. However tragedy struck when Mary Ann’s husband died two years later. It was at this point that Mary Ann realized that it was now down to her to run her father’s confectionery business. Due to her determination and courage she went on to become a successful business woman in an era where women were very seldom involved in business let alone an enterprise of the scale and success enjoyed by the Cravens.
York is home to many famous brands which are renowned all over the world. Rowntree’s produced KIT KAT, Smarties, Aero, Rolo, Fruit Pastilles, Fruit Gums, Polo and Black Magic. Terry’s produced the legendary Chocolate Orange, as well as numerous other flavours, and All Gold. Craven’s produced classics such as Sugared Almonds and the mint humbug.
We learned a bit about the history of cocoa and how the South Americans would hold rituals and sacrifices for chocolate. Just like me, well, expect the sacrificing part would be me sacrificing a size 4 pants to have the chance to eat chocolate instead of a goat or something. As we wound our way through the building we ended at a kitchen with some guy in a white apron which chocolate smears all over it. I can only assume this is were we got to sample some chocolate.
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| Check out the "vat" of chocolate |
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| Filling chocolate shells with ganache. The boys front and center ready to pounce. |
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| Not even half of what he ended up bringing out for us |
If you're not interested in my triathlon you can stop reading now. If you care to find out how poorly I did, how many bugs flew into my mouth and how many times I almost fell over...then by all means keep reading!
As some of you know my zeal for triathlons kind of petered out after we moved. I had high hopes to do as many as possible while living here, but the bike riding really set me back mentally. I only rode once before my race and that was just around the neighborhood. The swim and run I knew I could do. So we got to the race and it worked like all the others I did back home. Picking up my race packet, setting up my transition, etc. I poured myself into my wetsuit and started the trek to the swim. They had moved transition even farther away because the initial spot was a muddy mess from all the rain we'd been getting in the days leading up to the race. So the run from the swim to transition was almost a half mile...uphill...in goose droppings.
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| Me in my suit. I feel like the kid in A Christmas Story..."I can't put my arms down!" |
The swim went well. It was a two loop course and as I turned the buoy for the second lap they released the next age group right behind me. I was swimming happily along in my own stride thinking whatever you think about when out on a swim for that long when all of a sudden I was completely trampled. I got kicked, punched, sprayed with water in my mouth and up my nose. I actually stopped for a moment and yelled out "Seriously!?!" But there was nothing I could do but soldier on to the swim exit. I fell coming out of the water right in front of a race photographer. I asked him "Did you get that one?". I swear I take the worlds worst race pictures.
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| The journey to T1 begins. Still smiling oddly enough. |
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| Keep going |
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| Just beginning. On gravel?! Thanks race organizers. |
Coming into transition for the run was even slower than before. Change shoes, grab a Gu and off I went. I was now right at my hoped for 3 hour finish time. But I still had a 10K to go. The run was the run to end all runs. It was like I was in a competition to run as many surfaces as humanly possible. Paved, grassy, muddy, cobbled, pebbled, wooden. And again, since it was a two loop 5K course...you guessed, it I got to do it all twice. I was laughing at this point. Better than crying in my opinion. The run took me over an hour. I finished a bit over 4 hours and was so spent I didn't even have enough in me to sprint to the end. I always sprint to the end. But I was tired, sore and dirty. But coming into the finish chute directly in front of a castle to get my medal? Priceless.
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| High 5's for everyone. Half the run done. |
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| Completely done. Castle Howard in the background. Didn't even get a chance to see it! |
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| Cool art at the aquarium made with objects found washed ashore. |
