Kobi & Brian: Europe 2013-2014: February 2014

Next on our list of English towns to visit was York, the medieval walled city in the north. Everyone who has ever been to York has loved it, so we just needed to pick our weekend. Megan and Cousy were driving that way for a birthday on the Saturday night, so over a few drinks the road trip idea was born - all driving to York, spending Friday night in the pubs, with Megs and Cousy heading to their party Saturday night and picking us up again on their way back through York Sunday morning.

Brian and I took a half day on Friday and we all headed up to Yorkshire. 5 hours and the worst traffic later, we checked into our B&Bs and hit York.

Things we've loved about York:

Our B&B host Bruce. He is Alaskan, and made us Alaskan waffles for breakfast (incase you're wondering, the 'Alaskan' part is just lots of strawberry and chocolate syrup!) He was so lovely we had to get a photo with him (when we could get him to stop talking for 30 seconds).

Going out on Friday night and taking hours to walk the 10 minutes home as the boys were chatting and the girls were chatting and no one was paying any attention to where we were going until we were on the wrong side of York after walking circles.

All the wonky old cobbled streets and houses. York is ancient (medieval actually!) and the roads are wonky so in time, all the houses and pubs have become wonky too, like in Amsterdam. Gives it a lot character though.

There are 365 ale houses in York, one for every day of the year. Two of our favourites were the Golden Fleece (super wonky) and the Guy Fawkes Inn, where Guy actually plotted some of the House ofLords bombings! Guy was born in York so he features regularly.

Doing a tour of the walls, and walking along them. Our guide explained how some sections of the walls were built by Vikings, before being invaded and added to by the Romans, before the English completed and preserved them. You can see clearly where each addition was made, and they've been turned into an amazing walk along the walls looking into York.

It was such a beautiful sunny day (though still really cold) that all the squirrels were out! You can't help but be happy when you see a squirrel bouncing through the daffodils.

Visiting the York Dungeons to learn about witches being burned, executioners and torture instruments, the plague and Guy Fawkes. Seriously scary!

It was The Viking Festival Week in York, so there were heaps of people in Jorvik costumes! Our favorite was a little boy with a Viking shield and axe, a skeleton tracksuit and a transformers mask. So medieval!

York is as awesome as everyone says, it's a shame we didn't have longer to just wander around. We're about to embark on the drive home, fingers crossed for the traffic!

Love and Yorkshire puddings,

Kobi & Brian

Xxx

Bruce, our B&B host.

Bruce has met the queen!

Our B&B departure gift

Having Alaskan waffles!

The river through York

The walls from a distance

A corner of the medieval walls. The tiny slits in the arches at the top were for bow and arrow shooters to shoot through.

Brian helping our guide, Malcolm

The ruins of St Mary's Abbey.

One of the watch towers along the wall

The York Minster.

The walls. In WW2 the thousands if panels of stained glass windows from the Minster were stored in the arches under the wall incase the Minster was bombed.

Walking the walls

Wonky old streets

Little Shambles street

Trafford Castle in the middle of town.

Guy Fawkes Inn, where he plotted with his friends.

Squirrel!!

Just trying to get a photo of the minster in the background when this pulled in!

The walls

Typical York pub!

One of the 'definites' on our travel list was a snow trip, as Brian hasn't been in snow before and I hadn't been since I was 16. After some research we settled on a package holiday which are huge over here, and booked a week in Les Deux Alpes (meaning 'the two alps') two hours from Grenoble in the French Alps.

After a rocky start (3 hour delay as something in the plane broke) we were off. First stop Grenoble, where we boarded a coach for the two hour transfer to the resort. When I say resort, it's not one huge hotel in the mountains - the 'resort' of Les Deux is the entire village and surrounding slopes, which were unbelievable! We had both been up since 4am getting to the airport, but we couldn't close our eyes for a second on the drive through the mountains!

The rep from the package company we used came to see us about our lessons, equipment, lift passes (more valuable and expensive than gold!) and to help us check in to our hotel. While only a little B&B, you could ski up to the door of the room and the floors were heated so we were happy!

Things we loved about Les Deux Alpes:

Snow, snow and more snow. It snowed every night, so that every morning everything was covered in a thick layer of powder. It made everything look magical, and we never got used to opening the curtains in the morning and seeing white trees everywhere. It actually snowed for two days straight as well, so when we were out on the slopes it was piling up in our hair and in our hoods!

Skyping everyone for my birthday - thank you for all your lovely gifts and messages! Brian took me out for an awesome French dinner that evening, and we had escargot, beef bourgignon and vanilla infused duck. It was one of the best meals I've ever eaten.

Our snowboarding lessons were a big highlight, despite some spills and a few tears (mine). I did a decent stack backwards downhill but damage was minimised due to Brian's smart thinking by making us both hire helmets. After the first day neither of us could move without groaning and grabbing parts of our bodies (Brian- tailbone, me- arms, knees and neck). The fresh snow helped a lot though, it made the landings really soft. Brian did an awesome stack which looked more like a cartwheel but it was into waist deep soft snow so it was just funny. I laughed so hard I crashed into the same snow bank. It took the full week the get the hang of it, but towards the end Brian was flying along and linking his turns, and I even managed to do a whole slope linking turns without falling over. It was the best feeling ever, but a bit disappointing that we finally nailed it and had to go home the next day! Oh well, we will just have to go back.

Our snowboarding instructors were great, made us laugh when we felt like giving up, and pointed out people who were falling more than us. Although Guytan yelling in a French accent "watch where you are going Ko-biiii" will haunt my nightmares I heard it that often. We both got our logbooks with comments from our instructors in them which was lovely, they presented us with them on the last night at the pub, then had a drink with us before we went home.

The ski lifts were very entertaining, mainly for people watching me. On several occasions I fell getting off the lift, on one occasion I even fell over while on the lift, and all you have to do then is stand still!

We made some awesome friends in our beginners class. Can you believe a couple in our class are Aussies living in Clapham Common - in the same estate of flats as us!! Ridiculous, London really is that small. We will definitely catch up with them once we're home. But it was really nice to finish our classes, head to the pub to compare bruises and successes, and have people to experience all these funny things with.

The village itself was like a fairytale - all wooden buildings with icicles coming off them, a fire inside, and usually selling crepes and fondue. We tried both and they were so so good. The fondue especially - three types of cheese melted in a pot together with all sorts of things to dip in it! Definitely a 'sometimes' food!

Seeing as we hadn't been to the snow together before, there were many important things to tend to - including making snow angels, having a snowball fight, and building a snowman. We couldn't do the rolling method for the snowman as the snow was too powdery, but we managed a good one and named him Cecil. We checked on him every day and he was still there when we left. At one point there was some yellow snow on him which was devastating but Brian fixed him up. The suspects are in the next point...

We loved the resort dogs who roamed around town (despite them compromising Cecil). Each belonged to a hotel, with one of them being the Les Lutins dog (our accommodation). We tried to take photos of them because they would be sniffing the snow and would run around with snow beards, but they were too quick!

There were so many things we loved about Les Deux Alpes, but I think the photos say it better than we can! It was a week of baguettes, fondue, crepes, new friends and snowboarding - doesn't really get much better than that!

Au revoir!

Kobi & Brian

xxx

Just one of them many slopes. We boarded this one during one of our lessons.

At the top of midstation, 2300m up.

The chill out zone at Midstation. You get seriously dehydrated exercising in the cold air (-12) so they serve beer here.

The deck chairs with a few hours snow on them.

Heading to the pub after the lesson

Les Deux Alpes resort from the ski lift.

Rachel and Frankie from our classes.

On the lifts with Rachel and Frankie. Getting off was terrifying as you had to be strapped into your board.

The view of Les Deux

Crazy icicles

More icicles. Brian was worried if one fell on him he might get stabbed.

Making light of his fear.

Brian during the lesson

Getting the hang of linking his turns

Right before I fell

I'm surprised Brian managed to get two shots of me upright.

Managed to rip my pants on day two from falling. But ever the thrifty one, I refused to buy new pants. I bought a €5 sewing kit and fixed them. They were fine after that!