York: Sept. 19

Ian had the day off but had to volunteer at the Fountains Abbey first, so while he did that I got to wander around. It is too bad it was only 2 hours because the grounds were huge. Weird. But huge and pretty.

Fountains Abbey is a UNESCO site and houses a very old abbey and cathedral. The ruins are stunning and very historically significant. The ruins became a popular tourist site in the 18^th century and so they built this rather random French Garden downstream from the rather manicured Abbey. I can just imagine these monks turning in their graves under the church floor seeing all the Greek God statues and “Temples” around the Abbey.

There was a tour an hour after I arrived, so I figured I could manage to walk around the gardens and river and loop back around to the Abbey in an hour for the tour. Not so. WAY bigger grounds than I thought and I had to book it back to the Abbey. I was still late for the tour then rudely had to leave 40 minutes after to meet Ian at the church he was working at. Turns out that in itself was at least a half hour brisk walk.

Still, found Ian and we went off for our Adventure. This Adventure consisted of me screaming a lot and cringing on a regular basis from his driving. From what I understand, this is payback for scaring the shit out of him when I drove in Canada. There's no way my driving is as psychotic as his. Nor do I drive 70 miles down small twisty roads with no centre line ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE DAMN ROAD!

Still, despite the general fear I suffered the afternoon, we still managed to visit a little village and get pear drops and lemon sherberts and rhubarb custard candies. Then we drove past this spot where a lot of cars were stopped and decided to check out what seemed to be a view point.

Turns out its' the bizarre art installation, we didn't realize it until after, so mostly we were just confused. It has these miniature roads with a traffic circle that was pedestrian sized between these big stone walls. Then you walk in this huge spiral and get up to a view point overlooking a (coal?) mine. The view point is circular so you can look along the railing and see how far away all these different cities are in reference to where you are. Found Calgary, but here's a shocker: not Edmonton. No one actually has ever heard of Edmonton here as an aside.

Ian and I then make the cold climb down and I get a thistle in my sock. I complain loudly and receive no sympathy due to the fact I walked on it.

Down below the Coldcut WTF Art installation, we looked at an old Lime kiln and walked around the ruins. Then I found the sheep. Bob the sheep refused to acknowledge my attempts to befriend him. Ian thought I was insane. Apparently all the Canadians that see sheep in the UK get really excited and he doesn't get it. It's a sad state of affairs if you can't like sheeps. I like sheep. They are cute. And woolly.

After that bizarre stop, we drove along the Yorkshire Dales (valleys, basically). We stopped and I took photos of some more sheep and pretty stone walls and meadows. Then we nearly killed a pheasant. Because Ian can't drive reasonably.

The last stop of the day was Asygarth Falls of Keven Costner in Robin Hood fame. We took a few photos then headed back to York!

I called a few people from Home then we watched Top Gear and QI and Mocking the News. Good BBC stuff then off to bed!