Sunday 27 October 2013

York and Halloween

I went to York yesterday with my Mum and Grandma, and I'd completely forgotten how wonderful a city it is.

The overhanging upper floors and 16th Century style
of the Shambles is just so endearing, I could spend all day wandering up and down the pretty streets - and that's exactly what we did!

There was a culture market in one of the squares, and one stall was a Native American man, and a girl who was possibly his daughter,  selling really beautiful pendants, rocks, bracelets and dreamcatchers. "For you." he said, as he thrust two pieces of char into my palm, a pink one and a yellow one, repeating "Mak a squar" whilst placing 4 'jigsaw pieces' in front of me; after 15 minutes and him even showing me an example, I just really couldn't do it! It was really hard, I swear!

After this, we went on a search to find Betty's Tea Room amongst the narrow streets. Finding the smaller one first, we stood in line for 20 minutes before my Mother and Grandma decided they wanted to go to the bigger one, which was just around the corner, and had a 2 hour queue. We decided it looked pretty dingy, and anyway, who wants to spend £20 per head on afternoon tea? So we went to a hog roast shop - spotted  by me, of course - for Hot Pork rolls, which were divine, and much more down my alley (if you'll pardon the York pun) than cakes on a silver stand. The shop had this sign on the door which I loved.

Near the minster, was a book shop in one of the typical terraced shops. Inside, there was 6 levels (which were very narrow and small, with uneven floorboards), of old books. The smell was amazing, and I found the Fantasy and Folklore section in the basement, where I spent a good 45 minutes deciding what to take with me.

I decided on 'The Dragonbone Chair' by Tad Williams, 'The Daughter of the Empire' by Raymond E. Feist and Janny Wurts, and 'Darkspell' by Katherine Kerr. All of which were the original covers, which I'm really happy about - because the illustrations were so incredible!

Across from the Hot Pork roll shop (mmmm), was a Wiccan/Magic shop with a haunted house in the back! Unfortunately, my Mum and Grandma both refused to go into the back with me - and I was too scared to go on my own - so I bought a £3 parcel out of the lucky dip chest instead, which had three gemstones in it! The shop itself was really cool; it was round, the walls had been painted a deep purple, and, what I assume were the original beams, exposed and varnished dark brown. There were stands for the products made out of a tree stumps, and lantern-style lights giving it an awesome atmosphere. Plus both the owners/employees were Steampunk and the most wonderfully cheerful people! There were bottles of homemade solution on the shelves that did real things - they all had colouring in them to make them cool colours - like real magic! How exciting!

I'd only seen the clothes shop Yumi online on Asos and the like, but there was one on the high street! Everything is so cute in there, there was a cardigan with owls embroidered onto it, which was so adorable! There was nothing in the shop I really wanted to spend that much money on, as it's not the cheapest place in the world, but is still pretty reasonable for how well-made everything seems to be. But when I got home I saw a blouse in the sale on their website which I bought - I almost made it out unspent!

Saying that though, I only spent a grand old total of £8 in York, and another £8 on the blouse online, which is pretty impressive (for me) as I get so distracted by the unique lit
tle shops in places like this. I love the city, and I did consider it for University, but I think visiting there once in a while is still special.

Oh! I also dyed my hair ginger again for my Halloween costume, although it doesn't show up great with flash, it is quite surprisingly orange in the sunlight!



 Thank you for reading!



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