We started today by eating breakfast at our hostel before heading out into town. We stumbled upon a shopping area so we looked around in some of the stores, trying to keep out of the rain. The York Castle Museum was recommended in our guide books, so that was our next stop. It turned out to be a major disappointment. It showed recreated rooms and streets of York hundreds of years ago and the York Castle Prison which you could walk through, but it was nothing compared to the incredible (and free!) museums we went to in London. We left feeling rather cheated out of our money. After lunch, mom wanted to take a nap back at the hostel so I went and shopped around the area we went to earlier. The weather finally cleared up so we walked over to the Museum Gardens near the Yorkshire Museum and saw the ruins of St Mary's Abbey. We walked up the street to the massive York Minster. The church is beautiful from the outside and tomorrow we're going to try to attend a service and see the inside, which I've heard has some incredible stained glass windows. Nearby, there is a whole area of little cobblestone streets lined with shops, which we got lost in for awhile. We headed from there to a section of the ancient stone wall surrounding York and walked along the top of it around the downtown area. To end the night, we decided to go to one of the pubs along the river. When we got down there we noticed a large group of people near one called the Kings Arms. My mom and I ordered a pint and sat on the edge of the river, watching the boats sail by. When it started to get colder, we went inside and took a seat at a table in the back. Before we knew it, we were chatting it up with three English couples sitting next to us. A couple pints later, one of the guys began showing us bar tricks, like moving a coin balanced on the rim of a glass across the other side without touching it! A girl and her father on our other side joined in too and soon everyone was participating in a balancing contest and seeing who could hold a wall squat longer. It was quite the lively bunch! This had to be the best night of my trip so far. But when the bar closed, we had to say goodbye and headed back to our hostel. It was such a great experience connecting with complete strangers and spending a couple hours simply enjoying each other's company. It's sure to be only the first of many!