Having Fun

The people here are great =) I know most of what I post is about how fabulous London is, but here is one all about how great my flatmates (and the people next door) are.

A dinner with my flat and the one next door. We are having chili! mmmmm......

Going out for a birthday celebration

The peeps in the flat next door. A lovely bunch =)

We had Christmas dinner cooked by everyone--roast chicken, carrots, potatoes, sweet potato fries, salad, Christmas pudding, and a cake. It was delicious-- and how fun it is to have a meal with friends! Definitely better than sitting alone at the table eating a tired bowl of pasta!

Carving (or rather, picking apart) the chicken. This was such a find. An entire raw chicken with herbs and pork rosemary stuffing for 3 pounds!! That's good value....

Everyone eating Christmas dinner

Yes, I'm squeezing his butt....

Apparently you're supposed to set the English Christmas pudding on fire with alcohol?!

The Usual Pretty Pictures

OK here are the usual beautiful pictures of London. Yes, yes, I am quite the photographer =)

I love how it looks like the Tate Modern spider is crawling all over London. St. Paul's in the background

A section of a copy of Rodin's Burghers of Calais in front of Parliament

Parliament in the dark.

Christmastime in London

Christmastime in London is amazing! Everything is so beautiful (when it isn't rainy and wet!). Actually, speaking of, the weather is crap here. It's always rainy and freezing cold and there are puddles everywhere and it gets dark at 4:00 PM. And they say it will get even worse in the coming months!! Aaack!!! Back to beautiful Christmas... the city is so big so everywhere you go, it's decorated in a unique way. There are trees and lights everywhere. I'm posting some of my favourite Christmas spots: Covent Garden, Oxford Street, Hays Galleria, etc.

The market at Covent Garden--I love this because the decorations are so tasteful and elegant

I think this is called Carnaby Street or Wharf or something.. it's off of Oxford street and it's a buch of great little stores and I love these unique decorations

Beautiful twinkling blue lights around Southbank/Waterloo. I LOVE walking by here at night.

Angel decorations down a side street of Oxford Street. In case anyone didn't know, Oxford Street is THE shopping street. With literally any store you can imagine. You could spend days shopping here!

An ice rink an gorgeous tree at Somerset House, near my school. Maybe one day I will pay the $24 to skate there....

It's a big deal here to light the Traflager Square Christmas tree. It started as a gift of a tree from Norway in 1947 to say thank you for help during WWII. So I went, thinking it would be great. They play it up like the Rockafeller tree, so I had high expectations. Well first, of course it was raining. So that automatically brought it down a notch. And the tree was.....disappointing. Like a Charlie Brown tree. Fairly tall, but super scraggly and thin. And just a few lights draped haphazardly over it. And you couldn't hear the choir singing carols. And the rain made the tree branches droop even more than usual. Maybe I'm too used to "America--bigger and better", but it was sort of a disappointment! Picture below....

Sorry to end this posting with such a sad photo, but it was a sad tree.

Visits from People I Love! Thanksgiving!

November was full of visits from people I love. For Thanksgiving, Kathy and Monica came! We had a fabulous time...I showed them my favorite London stops and we had the most delicious Thanksgiving meal on the planet on top of the OXO Tower (it has some of the best views of London in the city). Yes, it was strange to spend Thanksgiving here because no one seemed to care! No turkey, no cooking, no Macy's parade, no football, no feeling of exploding from food overload. But the most important thing is that I gave thanks for having the most fabulous flatmates ever, and that this London experience has been extraordinary. And that I got to spend it with family, how wonderful!

Kathy and Monica!!

We went to the Ceremony of the Keys at the Tower of London (a way to get in for FREE!!) and saw this procedure for locking up the tower that they've done every night for over 700 years!At Greenwich--beautiful as ever!

Just after Thanksgiving, Nicole visited! She came to the big city from this little hick town in America called New York. So naturally she was like a country mouse out of her element =) First adventure was finding her... she arrived into the airport at around midnight, took a train to central London, than a night bus to about 10 minutes from my flat. So she calls at around 2:00 AM and I attempted to meet her at the bus stop (I got a bit lost!). Crazy that the night never sleeps here. Probably there are more normal people out at 2:00 AM than 2:00 PM! But she made it here and we had a fabulous time. We saw the crack at the Tate Modern, went to Covent Garden, shopped at Portabello Market, ate at a pub, had fish and chips, attempted to go to quiz night, played card games with the flat, took a walking tour of Westminster, and had girl talk time at night! An amazing time with a dear friend!! Alas, it was too short.

Sleepover with Nicole! I may not have a big floor, but it's open for whoever wants to visit =)

Nicole under the giant iron spider outside of the Tate Modern. The spider even has eggs in an egg sac. Watch out!