On to Newcastle Upon Tyne!

Bye Sheffield!
The last day in Sheffield was fun. Johnny and Sally went for a walk around the city. ME AND GREG (that's for you Ann mwahah) went for a bike ride through the cemetery. It was nice, historic, pleasant, and all that schnazz. It was built as a main cemetery because all of the others were overflowing ages ago. If you read the tombstones you can see a lot of the peoples stories, such as the lady who had 12 kids but all but 3 of them died before the age of 7. After the cemetery we looked for the boulder park that I saw the previous day. We found it which I think made Greg's week. He got to unpack his mountain climbing shoes and boulder for a little. There were three people climbing at the time: Lee, Haleigh, and Rob. All interesting characters. Rob, in particular, was really cool. He was older and came from America. Lived in Savannah GA for a long time, Seattle WA for 12 years before he left the US, Bermuda, and now in Sheffield EN. He was very proud that he missed all of Bush's presidency :) This of course led to a discussion between the five of us about how much Blair sucks as well. But yeah Rob is getting his masters in something about the Environment and Sustainability. So he was real interesting to talk to. Apparently since the 1960's England has cut their rail system by almost 50% BUT its still 10x better than the American railway system. Then the bus system is of course better. It's funny though, all the locals think their mass transit system sucks yet me and Greg are amazed at it. Different living though. I mean they DO pay 98 pence per litre of gas (about $7.50 a gallon)... the mass transit system has to be better. After that we went to a bike store so Greg could replace his seat, get some spares, and a new bike pump. Went to Tesco and got some bananas, chips, and a store brand 2 liter bottle of cider. Got back to Sally's and no one was home so me and Greg did what we thought best... drank on the front porch. We felt like real city-dwellers :p Sally made us some amazing tortellini and we all went to the Devonshire Cat. Let me tell you... this was an AMAZING bar. They had like over 300 different beers from a bunch of different countries as well as locals. They were delicious. Greg had some good ones, too, so I got to try a lot of beers. Had some interesting workplace convo with Katie and Jim. APPARENTLY they get 1 month holiday and after a month of working they can get 6 months paid sick leave and a further 6 months half-paid sick leave. Their work weeks are still 38 hours/week... but quite different than the US, eh? Seems much more geared towards happiness of the people. I am jealous because I know upon getting a job I will get, what? 1 week vacation, 1 week sick days, and during all of that my blackberry will make sure to keep me tied to the job? YAY. We headed on to a place called the 777 where I had some neat white German beer. The club played 60's American music all night it seems. They REALLY like old American music, apparently it's the Bees Knees. :p We finished up at a British House Party where I mainly focused on the fondue. Yum. Also talked to some guy a lot about traveling and he really peaked my interest towards Japan. Maybe one day I will get out there, I hope.

Night in the Caravan Park
We left on Friday but with a late start since we were out so late the night before. Since Sheffield was built in the valley and our ride in was all downhill we knew the way out would be uphill. But after a few days of rest it actually wasn't too bad. We got out to a good start. We have stayed on pretty main roads, even though we meant to use the National Cycle Route. We forgot to look, though, and didn't have enough time in the morning to find the maps and what not cause Sally and Johnny were waiting to go on a walk around the Peak District :) (yes, remember we were in the city built upon the seven hills or whatever they saY...!). The mileage to Middlesbrough was about 110 miles so our goal was to do half and half, which would put us around York for the night. Other than the scenery being beautiful the day was uneventful. We probably had the same ol' lunch of bananas. We stopped at a school a little later and cooked some soup and ate it with pita bread and peanut butter. You guys take for granted cupboard space. You don't understand how AMAZING peanut butter really is. It is so versatile, hence our widespread use of it. For dinner I went into some store and got a cooked chicken and Maryland cookies for dessert. The day was really just biking We got really close and finished up right outside of Tadcaster in Oxton (3 miles outside of York). We stayed on some farmers land for £5. I made rice, threw in some spicy mint sauce, and ate it with the chicken. By the way, the "Maryland" cookies which they pronounce Mary-land are made in England and just taste like Chips Ahoy! cookies. We set up camp and hoped for the best, because as always the forecast was 50/50 for rain/good weather.

Visit to York and Arrival in Middlesbrough
Woke up early yesterday and set up our tent. The farmer came out and congratulated us on our good luck as it looked the sky was completely clear. He also told us that ONCE AGAIN we were on a piece of history. What we thought was his driveway was an old Roman road. It ran from his farm STRAIGHT (literally) to Tadcaster. You could look straight down the road into town. It also used to go STRAIGHT to York but isn't straight anymore due to the newer roads and what not. We got a picture again as this was our second farm that had links to Roman times. Awesome. Our directions originally had us taking the belt around York but I figured what idiots would we be if we just PASSED York?! So we rode in and just... wow. We knew we were entering when we went through a stone gate called the Micklegate Bar. According to the plaques... when York was under seige it was surrendered with only a few conditions, one of which was to keep the gates and wall intact. So to this day the city is still built in complete harmony with its historical surroundings. In fact, we were able to get up on the city walls and walk around. My two favorite buildings were the Clifford Tower and the York Minster. The Clifford Tower is a defensive structure built upon a manmade hill. Climbing up the stairs gave me an idea of how hard it would have been for an enemy to scale the hill sans stairs loaded down with armour. One guy could of probably taken out 20 men. It was real cool that it was still there and in great condition. The York Minster was an amazingly huge church. It was just... beautiful. Its construction was amazing, the amount of detail was amazing, just wow. What I liked most about York was just the fact that even though there were obviously a lot of tourists... it wasn't a tourist trap per se. The town/city really did seem to just be normal but had a flavor of a lot of history to it. I can't think of any other city I have been to that is much like that. After a little we headed out of the Bootham Bar onto the A19. We stopped at a Sainsburys and these two guys heard me talking to Greg and asked "Is that a Canadian accent I hear?" I of course said yes and they went on to say "Ah we like them... not slaves to the US like that there Mexico." The guy had a mullet and cut jean shorts mid-thigh high. An English redneck? I think so. But they heard we were going to Middlesbrough and warned us to move our wallets into our front pockets and to avoid the A19 and opt for a bike route and to get ready for hills. We moved the wallets, took the A19, and the hills never came (at least not enough to pose warning). It sucks, my backs been hurting. Don't know why... hopefully it'll get better with time, eh? My legs feel fine, though. We got to Middlesbrough, met up with Beef and her friends Sally, Amy, and Vanessa. I had bought a pepper so I made me and Greg rice, tikka masala sauce, sausage and peppers. was good. Other than that we just watched some talent show that was essentially American Idol complete with Simon and all. We ate some more food, got offered lots of tea, and eventually watched Hostel. Heh :P My mom mentioned that movie 50x trying to persuade me not to come here :p That was the end of the night.

Day in Middlesbrough
Today we just really lounged around. Went to a bar to get some internet access. Ate some sausage, eggs, bacon, and chips. Me and Greg plan to leave for Newcastle Upon Tyne tomorrow. Well, phew, there was another long update with more details than you cared for!
Will update when more happens, I hear Newcastle is beautiful!

Frank