Wedding, random tourism and training...

Saturday morning we left for the wedding in Cambridge about midday. We took the train from Liverpool Street station, and the journey took about 1.5 hours. We arrived to glorious weather - sunshine, warmth, half naked people everywhere. ;-) We had a couple of hours to kill before the wedding, which was at 4pm, so we took a cab to the Shire Hall, the venue for the wedding, and walked around from there. We wandered past the Cambridge Folk Museum, and I wanted to have a look. So we went in. The lady behind the desk was lovely, as she offered to mind our bag for us (our large cumbersome overnight bag) while we wandered around, not only the museum but Cambridge as well. In light of this, I felt the need to pay the entry price to the museum. I had a brief look around. Nothing too exciting, although I did like the Victorian picnic set which was complete with a spirit burner to make tea. Very civilised.

The wedding was lovely. Sarah looked stunning in her wedding dress, which was pale gold and embroidered with beads. The ceremony was short, with Jake's neice Madeleine adding sound effects to it. :-) She is 10 weeks old I think, 3 weeks younger than Sarah's daughter Orlaith. After the ceremony there were many photos taken outside in the sunshine under a lovely large tree. Orlaith, poor thing was not enjoying all the attention. I stole her away and she seemed to be calmer with someone she knew holding her. She is lovely, and she had on a very cute pink lacey dress.

From there we got a lift (Scott and I were in separate cars) to the reception, which was at a pub called the Green Man in a village called Colne. I have to correct myself when talking about small towns, as I always want to call them country towns, but in the UK they are villages. :-) Often villages, although quite separate, can be only 2 miles apart.

The reception was fun. We met some new people, which was nice considering we didn't know anyone. The pub was sweet with a real character. We met a guy called Jeff, who is very funny. He has told us we have to go to Edinburgh for the Festival. I would love to, and now we have someone to meet up with, it should be great. We got back to our hotel, in the next village, at about 1am, to sleep in a four poster bed.

The next morning we took a train from the nearest station, Huntingdon, to Peterborough. From there we looked at where the trains went, and then headed to York. It was a great choice, and we arrived about 2pm, and found our hotel we had previously booked from the Lonely Planet guide. Dumped our bag and then hit the town. We wandered about, and we found a German market - complete with sausages and beer. We found what we wanted to see, which was the Jorvik viking centre. It is a museum over the site that archaeologists found the remains of the viking settlement of York, called Jorvik by the vikings themselves. We went on a ride through the viking village, complete with sights AND smells. It was fantastic, thoroughly enjoyable. From there we wandered down to the river, as we had decided to do a ghost boat cruise at 7pm. In the meantime we hired a putt putt boat and dorve up and down the river for half an hour. That was really fun. I got to drive!! The ghost cruise was funny, a bit tacky, but the guy dressed up had some good stories. We had some dinner after the cruise at a pub looking over the River Ouse "ooze" :-)

The next morning we had a yummy hot breakfast to keep us going for a touristy day. We checked out and headed to the York Castle Museum. That was a very good museum, with lots of reconstructions of streets and scenes, which I think museums should do more of. That way, people can see how the objects were used originally, and not just in a glass case. From there we headed to the Richard III museum, which is in one of the gates of the old city walls. Then it was on to the Minster. The Minster is stunning, and huge. It is a huge church or cathedral, which dominates the York skyline. We had a look in the crypt as well. There are lots of stained glass windows which are lovely, many of which are still the original medieval windows.

From the Minster we took a train, that was really a truck with trailers for the passengers, to the National Railway Museum. The NRM is the largest railway museum in the world. It was very interesting, with lots of big trains and sights to see. We walked in a bullet train, wandered in the open store, took lots of pics, saw a demonstration of a turntable. After the Museum we had a ride on the York wheel, which is a smaller than the London Eye but it gave us a lovely view of the city. After the museum, as we were kicked out at 6pm, we wandered back into town and grabbed some dinner. We started off in a Turkish restaurant but the guy was so rude to us when we entered that we left. I hate it when people in restaurants tell me where I can and cannot sit when I ask nicely. The restaurant was not full, and there were two people sitting at a table for 4 (which is where I wanted to sit but we were told no). So we walked out. We ended up in a Chinese place up the road which was very nice. Then it was back to London on the train and home from the station on the night bus.

This week at work I have endured training. It has not been too bad. They have not made me do everything, and it has been nice to get to know the newbies.

Oh, I almost forgot... I received my UK drivers licence in the post yesterday. YAY!!!!