Day 1: Wednesday/Thursday: Tom dropped me off at SeaTac airport for my mid-day flight on Northwest Airlines. Had an uneventful flight to Detroit, where I made my connection to London Gatwick. Arrived at Gatwick at around 10am Thursday London time, which is to say 2am for me. Caught the train to London, stopping briefly at the London Bridge station to try to take some photos and perhaps walk the rest of the way to King's Cross railway station, but the weather was poor for photos and I was tired, so I quickly gave up and hopped on the next train to King's Cross - only to have to backtrack when I realized that I was on the wrong train. Eventually got to King's Cross something-or-other, which I discovered is not the same thing as King's Cross proper, but is I guess the Southbound terminus for King's Cross, so I pretty much just had to walk across the road to King's Cross. Caught the next train to York.

On arrival in York, I found my way to the Coach House Hotel, the Bed & Breakfast where I had a reservation for two nights. After checking in went out to explore a bit because it seemed way to early UK-time to be going to bed, though I felt plenty tired since it was late at night my time. Began walking the old city walls. York is smaller than I had realized, and I ended up walking all the walls, starting at Bootham Bar and heading east past Monk Bar, until the wall ended (searching for good views of York Minster) at which point I turned around and circled the city counter-clockwise.

During this I stopped at Clifford's Tower, all that remains of York Castle, but it was closed for the evening. In the warm evening light, I took some photos of the buildings near there - primarily the Castle museum, which resides in the old womens and debtors prisons. At some point I got dinner at the Royal Oak Pub. Eventually I went back to the B&B and crashed for the night.

Some clarifying information is that "gate" is the Old Norse term for "street." For instance, High Petergate is the name of the street leading into the city center from Bootham Bar, "bar" being a medieval gateway in a defensive wall.