Scarborough (sans fair)

No, parsley, sage, rosemary or thyme. There was however, a true love of mine.

BAM! PUN ATTACK! I'M BACK!!!!!

I'm also not that bad at rhyming either...

After much consternation of realizing that we had to spend money to go places, we actually decided to GO somewhere for our 6th? 7th? anniversary. (We honestly don't know). Thanks to our OCD budgeting, I can give a short recap of the week:

On Monday we spent 16 pounds at the market getting a total of 4 potatoes, 3 tomatoes, 1 cucumber, 2 rolls of garlic toast, imitation bagel bites (probably better), 8 steak burgers, 2 steaks, 4 Chinese marinated chicken legs, and 10 ribs. We still have about half of it. That's good. Merrie also got a week bus pass because she has rolled/strained her foot, or a stabilizer muscle, or something.

I had my first private lesson on Wednesday, which was good, but I unfortunately missed going to Carmen by minutes. I got an email late the week before and didn't have time to switch around times annnnd our really unreliable phones failed to relay some important messages which made me miss the box office closing. ugh.

I am also writing this post in a new location. Merrie was under siege from incredibly smelly, rude and diiiiirty suite. She lost, and moved to a newwwwww flat in P block. It's actually realllly great. There are nice people, a better room, and this smoky, antique mall smell.

Also, sometimes we stream JAMMIN' JJS to keep up with all the latest U.S. hits, however, SOMETIMES I DON'T WANT TO HEAR RYAN SECREST MARKET A TWIX BAR, like now. They also cost about $2.25 here.

Now for the meat of the post:

Since neither of us have class on Friday, we booked it (rather slowly) to the train station. We actually got there with about... 25 minutes to spare? However, the update screens never mentioned that our train was boarding... so about 6 minutes until the train was slated to depart we decided to go through the gates anyway. This turned out to be the right decision since the train would have left in a couple minutes... (yes, without us, shocking.)

We arrived to a surprisingly cold, foggy Scarborough. Thankfully, it was fairly clear in the morning, so we walked around for a few hours because we were smitten by our first time seeing the North Sea. We walked south of the town for a while and then we got hungry. Unfortunately, we were in a totally residential area, so we walked back to where we had been. In transit, we happened upon a true Jersey style arcade/casino. We did not beat the system. (please note I have said "we" 10 times in this paragraph already. I don't think this is a good thing, but this is also not a paper, so I don't care. Deal with it.)

Merrie and I had lunch at "Winkin' Willy's" if my memory serves me correctly. I think it's the best thing I've had (aside from Merrie's cooking) since we've been here. From there, the castle was next in line. The plateau that the castle sits on generally dominates the scenery. It's obvious why a castle was built in such an area. By this time, the fog had reallllly rolled in and you could tell the women in the ticket office thought we were stupid for going. Needless to say, it's was a great experience. By this time, our keep-merrie-off-her-foot plan had gone to "poop." So we went to the hotel which had check-in after 3. The hotel itself has a lot of history surrounding it and we weren't really sure what to expect because of the price of the room vs. the exterior. Overall we got a really great deal. The included dinner and breakfast were nothing to write home about (ignore the fact I'm doing such) but it was food, that we didn't have to pay extra for, so it was great.

The steps from the hotel to the wharf (you've really got to click on the pictures to make them larger and get the full effect)

View of the wharf

North Sea with the roof of our hotel in the foreground

ARCADE!

Entrance walk to the castle

The cliff hike

Constant view

We had planned to follow this sign... guess not

And then the sun started to shine...

Castle- 2nd try

Rather proud of this one

View of the beach in front of our hotel from the Castle

Boats waiting for the tide to come in

A once in a lifetime type of cloud

The next day we just walked around more, and more, and more... We thought about going to an aquarium, but when we got there it was pretty underwhelming... We did see some trails going along the coast so we followed those for a while, lots of pictures ensued. The BBC had said that it was supposed to clear up on Saturday, but I didn't believe them. They turned out to be right and it gave us a completely different experience on Saturday. We essentially just walked around... The castle was visited again and a dinner at Pizza Hut was had before our trip back to Leeds. Where another 2+ mile walking trip greeted us. I think we probably walked.... around 30 miles this weekend, (exactly what the doctor ordered...)

A good representation of Scarborough- eclectic

Since this post is so long, I'm considering submitting it to many publishers as the first chapter to my memoirs entitled: Memwars: How It Should Be Spelled. If Bieber can do it, so can I. Especially since his new documentary Never Say Never only encourages me more. BIEBER FOREVER.