Contiiiiiiki, follow the right guide!

Dec 27 – I got up and finished my packing gradually. When I checked to see the status of my flight, it said it was delayed one hour. I got a ride to the tube station from my hosts as they were on their way to another meal with friends, and we had to stop for them to do a little last minute shopping along the way.

I said my good-byes at the tube station and got on the train. I got to the correct terminal without any problems and checked my bags, went through security and headed to my gate. I had been rushing a little bit because the board didn’t say that my flight was delayed, but since I got through security nice and quickly, I still would have made it on time.

I got to the gate and started writing in my journal to pass the time and that was when I realized I had lost the panda button from my bag.

When we finally started boarding, we were behind. Then it took forever because everyone kept having to be assigned different seats because we had gotten put on a different plane. Then we had to take a bus to the plane.

We sat on the tarmac for a long time before we finally took off. I had heard that Made in Dagenham was a good movie, so I tried watching it, but I only made it partway through before falling asleep. Luckily for me (since I was hungry), they gave us a meal of a tuna sandwich (and I like tuna).

We landed in Rome and I had no problems getting through customs (it seems like England is a lost harder to get into than most of these other countries). The guy who stamped my passport didn’t even look at it. I bought myself some Euros and then I got a ticket to the central train station. When I got there, I looked around in a grocery store a bit and then got myself an overpriced taxi to the hotel.

Flight to Rome.

Waiting for the train to take me into town.

When I checked in I found out that the whole tour group was out doing a night time walking tour of London, and since my roommate had the key to our room, the concierge had to let me in. I also found out that I had missed the introduction meeting. I sat in the incredibly hot hotel room and waited to meet my roomie. I was really tired, but I stuck it out by writing in my journal as I waited.

I heard people starting to come back and shortly after that I met Bianca from Australia. I wasn’t surprised that she was Australian since I had heard that there were always a lot of Australians on these tours.

The next morning (December 28), we got our early wake-up call and headed to breakfast. I met someone from Toronto, and a few other people. Then we all got on the bus and left for the Colosseum. Our local guide for the walking our was fantastic. He was 74 (or so our main tour guide told us), and he not only seemed to know a little bit about everything, but he really trucked through town. He also took us through the Roman Forum before we had a break for lunch.

Arriving at the Colosseum.

Our tour guide.

Inside the Colosseum.

View from the Colosseum.

Outside the Colosseum.

At the Roman Forum.

I went to lunch with a fairly big group of people to a little restaurant where we all ate the pasta special. It was pretty good. After that, we got back on the bus to go to the Vatican.

On our drive to the Vatican.

Our local guide continued to lead us through the Vatican as we looked through some of the museums, the Sistine Chapel and the basilica. It was all incredibly beautiful, but the Sistine Chapel felt a bit anti-climactic for me. It wasn’t as amazing as I was hoping it would be.

Outside the Vatican.

Our tour guide told us to take a photo of this to pretend we took a photo of the Sistine Chapel (because you can't take photos inside it).

Inside one of the museums.

In one hall, the ceilings were covered with trompe l'oeil (illusion, "trick the eye") paintings like this, made to look like carvings.

Inside the basilica. Each one of those letters is approximately 5 feet tall.

Outside the basilica.

After we finished going through the Vatican, we had to wait for the bus for a while. Once we got back to the hotel, we had a bit of free time before the optional dinner. Our tour guide Angie decided that the place we were originally scheduled to go to wouldn’t be as good as it normally was (they weren’t going to do the show that was originally supposed to be part of the dinner or something), so she decided to take us to a different restaurant.

We headed downtown on a bus and got to the restaurant. The dinner was pretty good since we could order whatever we wanted, and I had fun at my table. We learned some Aussie slang, and had a good time. The only strange part was how staggered the meals were. I had my food way before anyone else, and then they pretty much forgot one girl’s food.

After the dinner, we went to a club that was owned by the same guy who owned the restaurant. I didn’t want to pay the entrance fee of €20 since it was for the open bar and I wasn’t going to be drinking anything. There was a little confusion, but it all got sorted out, and I got in for free.

The night was pretty fun. I met quite a few people, and even had a couple decent conversations even though it was hard to hear. Unfortunately my roomie ended up getting pretty sick, so she had to go home. I went home shortly after in a cab with two guys from Vancouver and one Australian. We ended up paying way too much for our cab (due to a little confusion and the cabbie not having change), but we got back to the hotel without any problems, so oh well. I tried to make sure Bianca was okay, and I went to bed once she was asleep.

Next - Florence!

*The title of this post comes from something our local guide said throughout the whole day.

My first Merry Christmas outside of Canada!

**Photo heavy! And the photos should be a little better quality from now on because I've been forced to link them from Flickr, and it's finally working for me!**


The next day (December 24), I decided to go visit St Paul’s Cathedral since I knew it was one of the few things that would be open. I peeked in and decided that it was too expensive to go in, so I just walked across the street to a little burger shop for lunch.

My first glimpse of the cathedral.

Next I decided to check out Covent Garden. The area around the market was really neat. There were lots of street performers, neat stalls and interesting shops. I bought some Christmas gifts for my hosts there, including a CD of chamber music from a group that was wandering around there performing. I also bought myself a Christmas present of some adorable gorilla earrings and a panda necklace from one of the stalls.

They would get up close and personal any time someone was coming to give them money.

Covent Garden Market.

After that I just kept walking and walking. I saw Trafalgar Square, and Drury Lane, and managed to make my way all the way back to the British Museum. When I couldn’t find anything open to look in, I just decided to go home. I stopped at the pound shop and Primark on my walk home from the tube station, and bought myself a couple things including a red sweater to wear for Christmas.

Trafalgar Square.

Trafalgar square.

I had gotten home fairly early because I thought we were supposed to be going somewhere for carolling, but we ended up just spending our time getting everything ready for dinner. I helped by folding the napkins specially.

D’s friends showed up and after we visited with them for a bit, we all headed off down the street to the church for Midnight Mass. It was a really neat little church that had vicars listed from the 1300’s. The mass was pretty good, but the little boys who were performing the music were a little bit off. They put in a great effort though.

Outside the church.

Inside the church.

We came home and had tortière (meat pie) for our reveillons (French Canadian tradition of eating Christmas dinner after midnight mass), and then opened a couple gifts. I got a journal and a Paddington bear print of him in Paddington station. I thought it quite fitting after the time I had spent there.

D’s friends left and then everyone went to bed. Some stockings were filled, and I wrapped up the gifts I had bought and put them under the tree. By that time it was really late.

On Christmas morning, we all woke up a bit late and had just enough time to open our stockings before we left. I got a lovely stocking filled with a lot of British themed things (lots of Union Jacks). We all piled into the car and drove out into the countryside to visit some friends and have another Christmas meal with them.

Me with my stocking.

We had our big meal at lunch time, and it was absolutely delicious. It was pretty fun because the dad of the family and his parents were all Canadian, so I got to spend my Christmas with a bunch of Canadians! The two little girls were lots of fun but they were sick so they were coughing everywhere. I even got some nail polish as a gift from them.

We're ready to eat!

Our turkey! Yum!

Our Christmas lunch was so massive that it took ages to get through. There was just plate after plate of yummy food, so once we were finished we just relaxed for the rest of the day. We watched some movies like The Polar Express, and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. I played with the girls and we had some fun with air hockey, pillow fights and Uno. After the girls went to bed, the adults played Trivial Pursuit, but it was a rather unorthodox game after they decided that the questions were too hard, so they just kept giving each other clues to the answers.

I had gone to bed relatively early and had heard that the girls likes to wake up guests pretty early, so I wasn't surprised when one of them showed up in my room the next morning (December 26). I got up and had some breakfast and then got my things ready to go.

Another family came to visit with their kids, so I hung out with the 4 little ones watching TV. Just before we left, we took some group photos of the family, and then we got into our car that was decorated like a reindeer (we all had reindeer antlers as well).

We decided to stop at a neat old pub for our lunch. I had pheasant pudding, hot chocolate and sticky toffee pudding and it was all delicious. I slept for a good part of the ride home, and then we just relaxed for a while, watching The Child and the Fox. It was a really good movie, made by the same people as March of the Penguins. After that, we finally opened our Christmas presents.

The Christmas tree with our Christmas haul.

I got a surprising number of gifts! My hosts were exceptionally generous, so I had a fantastic haul of Christmas presents. We all had to take turns opening our gifts and after that we just had a simple dinner. I stayed up late to pack my things and do my laundry, and I made sure to check in for my flight to Rome. I also got a bit snap happy with Gigi because she came to sit on my bed.

Gigi!

LOL. The bright flash is no fun!

Next - leaving London to go on a Contiki tour!

Christmas shopping, Sightseeing and Concerts

The next morning (December 22) I got up pretty late (since I had gone to bed late). D and I spent a fair bit of time trying to get a hold of Air Canada and the Canadian High Commission, but we couldn’t get a hold of anyone. Not even when we tried the French lines or the ones to complain about the clubbing of baby seals. We had been trying to get a hold of someone because we had been seeing reports about people stuck outside of Heathrow and we were wondering if there was anything we could do to help.

Just before I headed out for the day, I went to pick up some groceries for the corner store so that we could start making our Christmas dinner.  Then I got on the tube and headed to Harrods because I wanted to see it. I went in for all of about 3 minutes before I decided that I couldn’t stand it (there was a bit of a Christmas shopping rush), so I left right away. I looked around a few other stores and then went towards Piccadilly Circus.

Looking towards Harrods.

I found a Cinnabon there (it was nice to have a cinnamon bun that reminded me of home), and a little Panda shop where I bought a cute little button for my backpack. Then I just started walking. I got all the way to Oxford Street, and walked up and down it, popping into lots of different shops and hoping I could find myself a Christmas present because I thought the only present I would be getting would be whatever I bought for myself. I didn’t find anything I wanted though.

The panda shop!

My backpack buttons!

As I was walking around, I ended up talking to one of my English friends on the phone, and he apologized on behalf of his country for me not being able to get home. After that I decided that I really needed to find some food, so I kept walking and eventually grabbed a sandwich at a grocery store. I also happened upon the Canadian High Commission, so I made sure to hop up on the step so that I could say that I went to Canada over Christmas (because the building is technically Canadian soil). I took the tube home and I was lucky enough to get a ride from the station to the house from G. By that time it was fairly late, and the rest of the night I just took it easy.

The Canadian High Commission (it was hard to take a photo in the dark!).

The next morning (December 23), I decided I needed to do something touristy, so I got up and headed towards the Tower of London. I had a hard time deciding whether or not I wanted to go in because it was pretty expensive, but in the end I decided that I needed to go in since I was already there, and I had to do something touristy while I was in London. First I got some fish and chips though, then I got my ticket and went in.

Entrance to the Tower.

I really enjoyed it. I saw displays of what the Tower would have been like in medieval times and I thought it was really neat to see the rooms where the prisoners had carved graffiti into the walls (some of which was very elaborate). I also saw the crown jewels, and read the story about the biggest diamond in the world.

View of the bridge from the Tower.

Some of the graffiti carved into one of the walls.

I was sure that the huge black crows (ravens?) were going to eat the tiny little bird in the bottom right corner.

Some of the armour on display.

After the Tower of London (and the view of the Tower Bridge), I got back on the tube and headed off to Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. It was just starting to get dark as I got there, but I got a pretty great view of the parliament buildings, the London Eye, Big Ben and Westminster. The Abbey was really expensive (and I think it may have been closed at that point anyway), so I only went into their gift shop.

The London Eye.

Parliament.

Big Ben.

Back of Westminster.

I had to hurry home since there wasn’t much time before we were supposed to leave to go to the concert we had tickets to, but I made sure to quickly buy myself a Christmas stocking on the way home. I got changed quickly, and D, her parents and I headed off to Barbican Hall.

We had to drive to the tube station, and the traffic was horrendous! D had to let us out and then turn around to get out of the traffic while we waited for the train. When we finally got onto the train, it went just past the first station, and then it came to a full stop and just sat there for ages because of “delays”. It was infuriating, and we were sure we would be late for the concert.

Luckily, we got to Barbican Hall on time, and we had good seats. The concert was splendid. The orchestra was lovely, and the choir sang beautifully. All of the songs they did were Christmas songs, and for some of the carols, the audience was able to join in as well. It was really fun to sing the Christmas carols, and the sound of all the hundreds of people singing the songs was quite powerful. The children’s choir sang beautifully, but I thought they deserved a little more solo time, and the tenor had a brilliant voice. It was a great concert.

The concert hall had fantastic acoustics and felt very open and spacious.

In the lobby.

Next - an unexpected very Merry Christmas!