I've been slacking on the blogging!

We've been staying busy so it's been hard to find the time and energy to write a blog lately! Anyway-since my last post we spent 2 more days in York then traveled back to London.

On Friday we had a tour of York Minster, which is a huge old cathedral right in the heart of York. We were there for a few hours with a great tour guide who told us all of the history of the minster which gave us a lot of information on the formation of York itself, from when the Romans were there through the present day. The architecture and history (several fires, changing of the official religion of England, etc) were really fascinating and they had a cool exhibit in the undercroft with a lot of old foundation and structure as well as things that had been historically used in the minster. It is a church with one of the largest amounts of stained glass in the world which was beautiful. We spent the afternoon shopping and relaxing then that night saw a pantomime of Humpty Dumpty. A panto is a british Christmas tradition and they take a childrens story or fairy tale with huge amounts of comedy and audience participation-cheering for the hero and booing the villain. There was singing and dancing (a particular favorite was the entire cast dancing to their rendition of Beyonce's Single Ladies, we were in absolute stitches) and it was pure fun. After a pint at a pub we headed back to the hotel.

The next day we drove to Fountains Abbey which is a magnificent ruin of a monestary/abbey that was founded in 1132 and then was destroyed by Henry VIII in 1539. The ruins that are there are breathtaking and despite the really crappy weather it was so cool to see. When we came back we relaxed and shopped a little more (York is a very cool town) then I met up with a friend I know from the eventing scene who is here doing her masters. Dani took me for traditional English tea then gave me a tour of a lot of the city-since she's doing her masters in Medieval Archeology it was like having my very own tour guide which was awesome! Then we ran into a few of my friends and went to dinner at a pub before saying goodbye to Dani and heading to bed at a decent hour to get up early the next day to drive back to London.

More to come later!