Just after lunch on Friday afternoon, I left the office early and headed off to pick Sioned up. We spent the weekend in York to celebrate her birthday on Tuesday. After a brief diversion to one of the University offices where I spent an hour or so fighting against the Nortel phone exchange which seems to be fatally knackered, we headed off on our travels.

We were staying at the Royal York Hotel which is an absolutely storming location. We couldn't ask for much better, really. Arrived there about fiveish, and Sioned decided she'd have a bath and generally relax. Me not being one for sitting about and relaxing, I wandered off out into York to get some photos and scout around to see what we could do later on. I arrived back and we went down to an evening meal at the hotel.
I'll save the rant about the meal for another time (possibly tomorrow). The meal itself was fine, but it certainly gave me a good chance to form opinions on certain things. As I say, I'll save that one for another time. After the meal, we headed on out to a pub called Coopers, conveniently located next to the hotel at the train station. As railway pubs go, it's pretty bloody good, actually. Not too expensive, not too cheap, and plays good music. And not too smokey, either.
From there, we moved further into the city itself, visiting various places including the Hole In The Wall (I reckon it's a better place than BITE suggest), until we happened across a bar/club called Cert 18. As we arrived, we looked at the posters outside where we were accosted by a couple of blokes who asked if we "liked loud music" - if so, we *had* to go in. With such a glowing recommendation, who could turn down the offer? The place seemed to qualify as York's only metal/goth/emo bar. The music was good, although we decided not to shell out the xc2xa37 per person to watch the band who were playing in the other room. Perhaps, really, we should've done.
A wander around the city saw us heading back towards the hotel, where upon arrival we were well and truly ready for bed.

And there the problems started. The hotel had recently been refurbished. It's really been done quite well, but since the building is listed, putting in air conditioning can be a little tricky. That's fine, but the room was unbelievably hot. As in, laying on top of the bed (ie no covers) and the sweat was pouring from us. Needless to say, I was a little tetchy on the Saturday, which Sioned noticed more than once.

Saturday rolled around and I gorged myself at breakfast, before we headed out to do numerous touristy things. First on the list was the castle museum. I have to say, it was absolutely excellent. Well put together and certainly held attention for the whole time we were there. Some of the exhibits there really did entrance me for some reason. After that we had a wander around the Shambles, before we went for a cruise on the river which took an hour or so. By this time, it was after 3 and we were pretty hungry (we'd spent over 2 hours in the museum). Thing with York is, stretch your arms out and you're touching a pub or somewhere that serves food, so we just stopped at the first place that looked like it was capable of serving decent food. This happened to be Plonkers a wine bar by trade, but also somewhere that serves decent food, although the hen party that was in there at the same time were... quite vocal, unfortunately.
Sioned kept saying that I should climb to the top of the Minster, or go on the Yorkshire Wheel, but the cloud was too low which would've meant some relatively poor photographs, so instead we headed back to the hotel. I suggested that we go over to Joel's party in Wakefield instead. A minor disagreement later saw us both hooning down the A64 headed for Wrenthorpe.

It was absolutely excellent seeing people that I'd not seen in *far* too long. Caught up on lots of things whilst Neil cooked enough food to serve the whole of Yorkshire on the barby, Ellie told us she wanted Santa to visit, and Ben hooned around the garden on his car. Ace. We could only really stay an hour or so as we'd got more things that we wanted to do in York during the course of the evening, so we soon hopped back into the car and headed back to the hotel.

Short preparations later saw us trying the Hole In The Wall (see previous day) for food. Unfortunately we'd missed this, so went to a cafe on the corner next to the Minster. Nice food, all things said. From here, we headed over to a pub called The Golden Fleece, which was conveniently located just over the road from the club we'd be going to later. Out of all of the pubs we'd been to over the weekend, this one would probably rank last. It just didn't really click with me for some reason. After a quick drink there, we headed over to Fibbers, where we caught the end of AKP who were actually rather woo. Unfortunately, the club itself seemed pretty dead. We gave it an hour or so before giving up and heading off. Problem being that it was now 2330 or so, and nowhere was going to let us in. So we did the only thing we could - went back to the hotel.
A previous minor strop at reception (no, it wasn't a proper strop - I know that it's a hotel reception so just conveyed myself in a normal manner) saw the appearance of a couple of fans in our room which made a whole world of difference, so much so that we didn't wake until 0900 when the bells from the minster woke us.

A short breakfast later, and we packed the car up and we headed over to the National Railway Museum, primarily so that I could have a go on the Yorkshire Wheel, which towers some 50m over York itself. Some pretty ace views, although I still think the one in Manchester is better. After that we had a quick look around the NRM itself, before picking the car up from the hotel and heading into York itself. Sioned had spotted a fairground ride the previous day outside the castle musem which she wanted a go on, and I'd said I'd go for a walk around the top of Clifford's Tower which was next to it.
From here, we headed over to York Minster. Sioned decided to, for various reasons, not follow me up the 275 obscenely steep steps to the top of the tower (mainly she doesn't like heights). Even though I consider myself relatively fit, I was knackered at the top. Stunning views though. After a slightly more leisurely climb back down again, we headed for Betty's Tea Rooms where we found a huge queue which, in the midday sun didn't really bode well. On the way back to the car we happened across a mime artist - quite oddly, or a mime artist I got talking to him about some of the stuff he's done and is hopefully going to go. Quite a nice bloke.