Birthday Bash

Happy Birthday to Kyle! This weekend has been one long birthday extravaganza. It all started on Friday night. As far as throwing house parties, I had some big making up to do in order to regain Kyle's faith in my party-planning skills. Last year, for Kyle's 25th, I attempted to have a little get-together at our appartment in St. Louis. Unfortunately, out of 15-20 invites, only my faithful brother and sister-in-law showed (and, again, thanks Scott and Megan!!). But this year, in a great feat of cunning, along with some well-planned marketing strategies, we more than quintupled our guest count and had a Mexican dinner party for twelve. We had to borrow 2 extra dinner tables, 9 chairs, 8 sets of silverware, and 5 plates to pull it off. We also had to move the party out of our flat and into the hallway to accomodate every one. It turned out great, and with bellies full of enchiladas and margaritas, we finished day 1 of Kyle's brithday weekend. Unfortunately, in typical fashion, we forgot to take any photos, so sorry we don't have any pictures of Friday night.

On Saturday, we kept the party rolling on down to York. Kyle and I spent the day wandering the streets, taking in all of the sights and Starbucks the city has to offer. This was my first visit to York, but it definitely jumped to the top spot on my list of favorite towns in Britain. It's charming and historical, but also has lots of great stuff to do. Kyle and I took a free walking tour in the morning, then did some exploring on our own. Then we went on a brewary tour, walked a bit along the Roman/Medieval wall surrounding the town (in the photo above), and had some good traditional pub food for supper (Kyle had roasted lamb in a giant Yorkshire pudding, which isn't actually pudding, but a big puff pastry). We finished off our meal with some tea and sweets from Betty's, York's famous tea shop, which had a queue outside of its door nearly all day. Then we went to a service in Yorkminster, the big cathedral in the center of town.





We finished the day in York at one of the city's most highly-recommended pubs called the Maltings. It was "chock-a-block" (read: packed out) with patrons, so we ended up sharing a table with another couple. They really kept to themselves, but Kyle and I noticed the girl started wimpering, and yes, it appears that they were breaking up right there in front of us. To break the awkwardness, we decided to ask them to take a picture of us, so here it is! And, well, that's it--we took the train back down to York, bringing with us a precious bag of Starbuck's Christmas Blend, and happy to have had a much more successful turn at celebrating Kyle's birthday this year.