In the midst of my birthday week

It's been my 'birthday week'. Not only did I (& my friend) celebrate my birthday on that day, I'm having a joint B-day party with Wanchen on Saturday evening as well. There have been a lot of special things going on. But there is one thing I enjoyed very personally on my birthday, a little secret luxury I enjoyed with my favourite things.

There are two faviourite cafes in the city centre of York. One easy and affordable, the other quite the reverse. I thought I should treat myself on my birthday because it's kind of special day (why not?) and also because I had just sent the scholarship application form the day before. So I decided to go a little posh and luxurious. After teaching Japanese in a boarding school at the edge of the City of York, I went straight into the city centre. Bought a few things for myself, and went to Cafe Concerto.



This little cafe/restaurant is located just in front of the York Minster, that wonderful landmark of the city. The photo was taken with the Minster on my back. This little street where the cafe's located leads to one of the gates of the City Wall (far right in the middle of the photo). From there, you can start walking on the Wall (yes, the Wall has a foot path that gives fiscinating views of minsters and other buildings around).

The cafe serves good sweets and dishes of (mostly) Italian origin. As is expressed in its name, the cafe features music. So the wallpaper is made of a kind of collage of music scores, old ads for opera, theatre performance, &c. You can even find some old violin and tuba being hung on the wall. Even more, plates also feature music as you can see below.



I went posh as I said and had a full lunch like this:

A glass of house wine (red)
Chicken liver pate
Croquet Moussieu (a sandwich with ham and cheese in it)
Filter Coffee

The sandwich was good, and the pate was excellent. I particularly enjoyed a paradox of its smooth texture and thick savory taste of liver.

So with these wonderful dishes in my favourite cafe, I enjoyed reading my diary. This was something very special to me, which I hadn't done for quite a while. Reading the diary made me very happy and that was special enough to celebrate my birthday. Adding up to it, I even had a good dinner with my friends and went to a pub afterwards. They even gave me some presents and nice messages, written or otherwise. It's wonderful that I can celebrate my birthday tomorrow again!!! Thanks for all the hospitality you have shown (and will be showing) to me. At its best, that gives me a reason to live for a wonderful life!!!