Travel Virus

Sunday and Monday I was in York, visiting Professor Thomas Green, who is now retired.
Thomas and his wife Joe were incredibly nice, they hosted me and took me for a tour of the city.
In the night we even attended a “ghost tour”!!
York is nice, it has a historical centre with a peaceful atmosphere, a number of nice churches and roman ruins, with the walls and towers still running around the city centre.

In the last days it rained a lot (you are not surprised, right?) and in the next photo you can see the consequences in the center of York:

Last Saturday I was in Leeds, a nice city in northern England. The centre is just a huge shopping centre, where you can nothing else than spending money. I really tried hard to find something of cultural interest, but I had an hard time, first because there is not so much, second because it’s disorganized and third because everything close early and open late (for my 24 hours visit).
I was planning to visit an Abbey newly restored (Kirkstall), just outside the city, but on the brochure the was no indication of how to get there, so I went to the tourism office to ask. They didn’t have any map of transportation (and I later discovered that even at the bus station they didn’t have any!), and gave me indications of where to get a bus to get there. I waited 45 at the bus stop – there was no timetable or route explanation – finally a bus come but guess what? The ticket was 2.80 pounds and I had only a 10, and they didn’t have change, so the driver very rudely asked me to leave the bus!!!!! The next bus was after one hour.
From my various experiences around the UK I can certainly state that from a transportation system point of view (trains, buses, cycle lanes), this Country is certainly under-developed!
And if you want to know another story, when I catch the train I had a reservation for a sit, but in my sit there was a lady with a huge luggage, so I sit in another place, since the train was nearly empty. When the train official came, he told me I HAD to go to my sit. So he went to the lady and made her move all her stuff although the train was empty! Very useful.

However I managed to spot some nice places despite the unfriendliness of the square minded people I met on the way.
I visited the Tropical World, which is not very big but nice and has beautiful gardens around it.
Finally I went to the Medical Museum and really enjoyed it. It’s about the history of medicine, and the health conditions of the people from the 1800 on. It’s really well done and very entertaining; a bit macabre sometimes, but made me think how lucky we are nowadays!

Just walking near the train station I saw this church with the symbols of many religions, so I was curious and went it. I discovered it’s a Unitarian church and had a very fascinating encounter with Paul, the catholic minister of the church, explained me with great energy and passion his theories of how the catholic church is distant from the real world and how they bridge this gap. They believe God is only one and the different religions are just different ways to reach the same God. This not a new age movement, it began nearly 400 years ago and some eminent Unitarians were: Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, John Milton, Charles Dickens and Hans Christian Andersen.