What A Day!

As the title suggests, today was quite a day! Let's start at the beginning. To start at the beginning, you must know that I have contracted a cold. Yes a cold. In the cold and damp climate, it is no wonder. So while I am taking pictures, I am alternately blowing my nose on the sleeve of whomever happens to be passing by. This definitely reinforces positive sentiment towards Americans. But I digress.

This morning Laura and I took the train from Bristol/Bath to York, which is in the northern part of England. It is a stop on our way to Edinburgh, where we head tomorrow. We have been inordinately spoiled as a result of riding first class on our train ride here, so riding in Coach this morning was a bit uncomfortable for our newly snooty selves. The train ride took approximately three hours, and was through some very nice countryside.

After arrival, I got into a slight disagreement with the woman at the ticket counter as I attempted to obtain our tickets (already purchased ahead of time) to Edinburgh tomorrow. She insisted that I present the credit card used to purchase said tickets. This posed a slight inconvenience as this credit card is in Arizona. And I am not. She did not see the logic in this explanation. After winning the argument, because of course there is no other logical end to this argument, we headed for the taxi stand to get to our hotel.

After settling in to our new digs, we ventured out to town via Double Decker bus. This is as scary as it sounds. They drive these buses as if they have some sort of wish to die, or at the very least, kill all passengers on board. Relieved to exit the bus, we found ourselves smack dab in the middle of the quaint village that is York.

For those of you that are unaware, York is one of the few remaining medieval castle areas in England. It is most famous for York Minster, which is the most enormous cathedral you will ever see in your life. I have posted a photo of the front of it so you can see. The Cathedral is so large that in order to get it all in you would probably have to take about five pictures beginning from left to right. It seats 4000 people for services, which are still held regularly.

After going to church, we decided it was time to drink. So we headed over to a pub called the Yorkshire Terrier. Upon entering and asking for a pint, two men at the bar struck up a conversation with us, noticing that we very clearly did not have British accents. These gentlemen were from Norway, and extremely fond of Vikings. And not the ones from Minnesota. As a matter of fact, they were in town for a Viking convention. I am not making this up. And it gets better. We decided to grab a table with these two gentlemen, whereupon we learned several things:

• Norwegians are especially excited that George Bush is no longer our President. Laura, being a conservative Republican, wisely kept her mouth shut, although her lips were straining.
• One of the gentlemen was enraptured by Meryl Streep, who came up in the conversation multiple times.
• The other gentlemen recommends Amsterdam for their recreational activities (to include red light districts and cannabis). Again, Laura kept silent.
• Periodically, the conversation was conducted entirely in Norwegian. No one knows what was said.

After leaving the pub, Allison decided that she was sick of feeling like crap so we headed approximately 8 miles (just kidding, only 2) to the nearest thing to Target that exists in England.
Here is where things take a turn towards the dark side.

Medicines are not the same in England, except, ironically for Johnson & Johnson products. But anyway,. I spent several minutes deciding if the cold medicine for sale would kill me. Deciding it would not, I went to the checkout to purchase my items. As I paid for them, Laura consulted another cashier on some questions we had about the map. When I looked back, my wallet was gone.

Insert heart attack.

Since I knew that I had just used it to pay for my purchases, the likelihood of it being lost was quite small. Just to be safe, we searched around the immediate area. No wallet.

The cashier watched us search and when we arrived back at her check stand, she was gone.

Allison at this point is officially upset. My passport is thankfully safely locked in the hotel room safe. But that is the only thing that is. All other identification and cards are in the wallet. I immediately go into banker mode and call the bank to cancel all cards. During all of this Laura is cool as a cucumber. Allison is not.

After leaving my information with the customer service desk, Laura decides that we should grab something to eat at the restaurant in the immediate area to regroup. Her motivation, as a side note, is the fact the they serve ONLY American cuisine. She has decided that she is giving up on British food as it is most generally terrible.

While we are sitting there, I am on the phone with the bank, a phone call which will cost me $30. I cancel my debit card and credit card and thankfully in the 30 minutes since it was taken, no unauthorized purchases have been made. About 30 minutes later, the store calls. The wallet has just been turned in. The girl on the phone says that everything appears to be in it. All cash and cards seem to be present. We go back to the store to claim it. When we arrive, we are told that two non-English speaking foreign men turned it in after finding it an hour later. Hmmmm.

Laura then relays her theory about what she thinks happened. You decide. Her theory is that the cashier took it from the counter and then realizing that we'd create a scene about it and that her actions were likely on camera, felt guilty and decided not to keep it. You may think this is an odd assumption on Laura's part. But here's what's weird: the kind woman who I reported this to at the customer service desk said that this was not the first time this had happened this week.

Something was definitely amiss. All that said, the wallet is now returned and with the exception of ten years being removed from my life, all is well.

Tomorrow we will head back into town to do some shopping. Our train for Edinburgh leaves in the afternoon so we will have some time to do some more sightseeing in the morning here before leaving.

We are both really looking forward to seeing Edinburgh.

All's well that ends well. Cheerio!!