Last Day in Sheffield

Monday the 9th of June was our last day in Sheffield. We had three things in mind for that day: Weston Park Museum, the Botanical Gardens, and some shopping. 

We took the SuperTram to uni and walked the short distance from there to Weston Park, where these pictures are from:

This is Weston Park Museum:

The museum itself was very interesting, but by the time we left there, what had started out as a nice day had turned very wet. We still wanted to stick to our original plan of walking to the Botanical Gardens. On our way home from Bradfield yesterday, Jean and Brian had taken us past there in the car, and told us of a nice café where we intented to have lunch.
However, we did not manage to find the Botanical Gardens; we asked a friendly-looking couple coming our way which way to go, but they could only tell us the general direction. It was raining harder by now, and we walked up and down the area until our feet were very wet. At that point, we decided to give up and walked back into the centre.

We paid a visit at the cathedral, where a very kind but slightly confused elderly gentleman in a long red robe (part of the welcomers' team) got hold of my sister and nearly wouldn't let us go again. He had lots to tell, but we couldn't always follow his winding stories of counts and ladies, bishops and knights; I usually am very much interested in knowing the history of a place, but his tales were a bit on the strange side. Besides, our feet were still wet and we were still hungry. Eventually, we managed to tear ourselves away from Mr. Kindly-Odd, and stopped for a late lunch at the Blue Moon Café. 
As it was full of people, I did not take any pictures, but it is a beautiful location, and their food is delicious (I am not a vegetarian or vegan, but if I have the choice between a meaty dish and a veggy one, I usually go for the latter). Click here for their website with pictures, if you like.
 
It was mid-afternoon when we returned to our hotel to get dry clothes on and decide what to do with the rest of our last day. Since in Sheffield itself, most shops close surprisingly early (some as early as 5.00, even big stores), and it was still/again raining, we went to Meadowhall. It wasn't too crowded, and we had a good time there, leisurely browsing the many shops, and I even found a birthday present for RJ there.

Unfortunately, our choice of evening meal turned out to be the worst we had during the entire holiday: There is a place called "British Classics" at Meadhowhall, and we thought it fitting for our last night in England. However, the food was awful, with soggy chips and everything listlessly slapped on the plate, tasting of either nothing or like a mouthfull of glutamate, straight out of a bag, not like real cooking. I was truly sorry about that, but it was getting late and we needed to catch the bus back into town at a certain time and couldn't afford a last-minute change of plans.

By 9.00 pm, we were back at our room. By the way, all during our stay there, 4 nights, the room was never properly done: it wasn't hoovered, and the beds were made in such a sloppy way we could have done them better ourselves. We were not given the necessary number of towels. But when we called room service for more towels (there were two of us, after all) and also to give the room at least a superficial going over with the vacuum cleaner, ten minutes later the head of room service came to do that personally. She was friendly, and apologized, but I doubt I will ever stay in that particular Holiday Inn again. 

This is how our beds looked when they had been "professionally made":

Anyway - don't think my sister and I are spoiled brats who always find something to complain about; we really are quite modest in our expectations. And although this post may sound as if we did not enjoy our stay in Sheffield, that's only half true: we DID enjoy it, just had been a bit unlucky as to some of the choices we made (which of course is entirely our own fault). We'll know better next time!