Today we visited the city of York, which is what New York City is based on. The theme of the day was Vikings.

Our first stop was the DIG museum, which started with a lesson on archaeology as a concept and all the things archaeologists have found in Jorvik, the Viking settlement that York sits on. So, the even less new York. This was a big hit with Millie and she paid attention and participated during the talk. We were shown animal skulls, pieces of pottery, and even a fossilized human turd (big hit). We were then guided through recreations of real dig sites, including a Viking home and church.

Afterwards we did some of the activities in the surrounding museum. I explained what the idea of this worksheet was and she came up with the idea and did it all herself (with some help to spell the words). I am amazed and proud at how far her writing and drawing has come.

From here we walked to the Jorvik Viking museum itself, which shows old settlements and the actual things that were found. Our tour guide was straight from central casting. Could this man have any other job besides a Viking tour guide? Pixar model, maybe.

We were taken on a very bizarre tram ride through a life size diorama of the Viking village. It was full of animatronics, intense sound design, and even pumped in smells of old meat and campfire smoke. Millie was terrified but then got into it once we told her they were robots and not living clowns.

Despite the cheesiness of the tour, it was very interesting. They specifically called out two medical conditions that they know these Vikings had: one was Dupuytren’s contracture, which my dad has, and the other was arthritis and bone fusing, which I have. My family has come from this area for as long as we can trace and Nordic / viking dna showed up on my Ancestry dna test. Who says white people don’t have culture?! We have tight hands and weird backs.

From here we went York castle. Another day, another castle. I really do feel like we’re getting spoiled with castles now. I liked how this one was modernized inside, but overall it was cooler to see from outside, looking up at the massive manmade mound in the city center.

Our sightseeing was not done yet. We passed through The Shambles market area which was full of medieval buildings. Unfortunately many were covered in scaffolding, which is fair enough after >600 years of existing.

We arrived at Barley Hall, which is a restored medieval townhouse. Why don’t people lay out tile in this tile pattern more often? I loved the aesthetics. And they had lots of activities and things for kids to touch.

We then went to Betty’s Tea Room because my aunt told me we should go there to get a baked good called a Fat Rascal, and we are not people who pass up a local baked good recommendation. It was excellent.

It was a full day of perfect behavior from Millie. No begging for piggyback rides, no whining, no freak outs about public bathrooms, engaged in our activities, curious about what we were doing, etc. Her only complaint all day was that Nick takes forever to read things in a museum, which is also a complaint I’ve had for the last 15 years. On our drive home I thought, “ok, so it is possible!” She fell asleep for the whole drive even though it was pretty close to her bedtime.

We got back to our Airbnb and had a quick dinner, but we knew she wouldn’t be able to go to the bed for the night yet. So we decided to put the cherry on top of a perfect day and walk down our rural pub at the end of the road.

We sat outside in the setting sun with local cask ales. Millie (and Judy) played on playset. And then we walked up the hill with the countryside behind us and cows following beside us. I think it was our best day yet.