Christmastime

Dear Universe,

I don't mean to be unpleasant, but I would like to demand a refund on three countries, the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, and England. (And probably Wales, too, for that matter.) There is simply to snow, none at all. Despite Liesl and my desires for a white Christmas, or at least a white day sometime while we're in this part of the world, the closest we've come is to actual snow is frost and a mildly frozen lake. It snowed in some places in the USA, which you may have noticed is considerably closer to the equator than here. I find this very unfair, and I would like a refund in one way or another please. Thank you.

Yours in sincere disappointment,

Stephanie

Hello Readers,

Happy Boxing Day!

...and Happy Christmas.

Boxing Day is one among many of the UK and Ireland's bank holidays, which means that lots of places are closed. Because of the union between church and state, everything is closed on Christmas, and Christmas Eve, and New Years for that matter. And I mean everything; the tube is closed, the buses stop running...you can't even get a flight within the country.

The last of our days in Ireland passed pleasantly enough, with the pinnacle of excitement being the day we spent hours outside playing with the ice that covered the top of the lake. Ah, the sheer joy holding breaking the glass-like surface the lake and pulling up a sheet of ice. The urge to lick the clear blocks of ice was irresistible--and resist it we didn't. I know it was gross lake water, but it just looked so clean frozen! And it tasted just fine. We tried so hard to stand on it, but it just wasn't quite thick enough, though it did get up to about two inches thick in some places. And just as it seemed that the lake might actually freeze enough to walk on--it would need to be at least three inches thick--it thawed. It was so cool though! We seriously spent hours playing with ice. We would break some off and throw it onto the lake. There were also little frozen puddles that were fun to step on.

One day we kayaked on the frozen lake, and that was awesome too. We had to thrust the paddles through the ice, cracking it, to move forwards. The shattered blocks of ice made clinking, musical sounds as we rowed through them. It was a little winter wonderland.

We had a Curry Night with our neighbors the night before we left, which was fun. The following morning, the 19th,  our hosts kindly drove us to the airport where we boarded a plane to London. I had very neatly written out all of the information that we might need to show to the officers at immigration--phone numbers, addresses, etc. We were sure that they would be suspicious of our reentering the country, what with our detainment and all.

When we got off the plane in London, we approached the desk for people with non-European passports, and produced our passports for the guy at the desk. He asked for our boarding passes, which we then produced, but he had no interest at all in looking at our passports. We were sure that we would have to go to some other place where we would need to show our passports, but strangely--amazingly--we didn't have to. An officer with a dog came up to us and asked where we had come from, Madrid? No, Ireland. She said okay and let us go on our way. That was it. No immigration, no waiting, no questioning, nothing. It was because we were coming from Ireland, which is so close we were later told. But when we got to Ireland from England in October we had to go through immigration, so we're not really sure why we didn't need to when doing the opposite. But hey, no complaints there! Well actually, just one: we were slightly put out at not being able to prove our newly-found organization and overall competence as travelers to immigration. Oh well.

Unfortunately, the Gatwick airport--though allegedly in London--is actually about thirty miles outside of London. We had to take an almost two hour bus ride--which, ridiculously, was longer than our flight--to get into central London, where we were staying with our friends Elena and Zoe in Harrow.

It is a testament to the absurd weight of our backpacks that, even now, nearly four months into our trip, I still crumble, physically and emotionally under the weight of my pack. And my sitting around phase in Ireland ending a long time ago. I was running and conditioning almost everyday, and I ran about six miles or so a couple of times, so this has nothing to do with my being in horrible shape or something. These backpacks are really and truly absolutely horrible. The best thing about them is that they inspire in us a sort of amusement at their ridiculousness, a humor that comes when you've passed the point of frustration and anger.

We've both decided that once we get back to the US we're going to sell our backpacks and maybe get some smaller ones. Personally I've grown to hate REI with their overrated, overpriced, mediocre-quality outdoor supplies. I guess it's mostly because of our stupid backpacks, but honestly, why on earth would anyone need a backpack that big? It's ridiculous. They should have suggested smaller ones for us, they should have known that no backpacker however experienced needs a pack that gigantic. Though we're not going to sell them right away--we're going to be sure to keep them around for long enough that anyone who questioned our decision to quit the Coast to Coast, and anyone that thinks I complain about the backpacks too much, can have a go at carrying one for a while. Fully packed, of course, as heavy as they have been for us.

Luckily though, we're giving some of our extra, unneeded stuff to the Oestreichers, whom we are currently living with in London, to take back to the States for us, so hopefully they'll be significantly lighter when we leave for India on the 3rd.

On the note of heavy things, Liesl and I went grocery shopping for all of us the day before the Oestreichers arrived. It was Christmas Eve, and the store was jam-packed The grocery store was only maybe half a mile away, but we ended up filling five bags with lots of heavy food and having to walk back carrying it. It sounds like not that big of a deal, but plastic really cuts off your circulation; it wasn't so much the weight, just the awkwardness of carrying grocery bags, though it was exacerbated by the weight. Also we'd just had to carry our packs around the day before. No rest for the weary I guess.

Once we'd set the groceries down at home--wherever we are currently living immediately becomes our new home--we went to Whole Foods. It is so, so fantastic to be in a vegetarian-friendly country again, after the cluelessness of Ireland. And Whole Foods is a wonderful, beautiful place. I must have applied for a job there (in San Diego) ten times by now. This one was small--not as small as most of the tiny health food stores here though--but it was still so nice to be in there. It smelled herbal, and had tons of wonderful healthy food. We walked around it for a while, taking in the loveliness, and then bought some things to make vegan cheesecake for Christmas dinner. This was seriously one of the best events of my week, and not at all because my week was boring; it wasn't boring at all.

It was nice to see our friends in Harrow again. They have this Christmas party on the tube every year, where a bunch of their friends get together and decorate a train car, and just generally spread Christmas cheer on the underground. We went to the party on Saturday, and it was really cool. It's was awesome seeing the usual normalnes of the subway turned upside-down by young people singing Christmas songs--different ones than we have in the US; Liesl and I weren't very familiar with them--and giving candy to fellow tube riders. The ride was really long, from one end of the northern line to the other and back again, and for some reason I've been getting a little motion sick on the tube lately, but it was a lot of fun.

London is a great place to be during Christmastime. While I feel that there could be more decorations around, there are quite a few, and people just generally seem very into Christmas here. It's proper to say "Merry Christmas" in shops here, I noted; in the USA "Happy Holidays" would be politically correct, though it's pretty clear that America is a heavily Christian country, and that it really doesn't respect any non-Christian holidays, such as, say, Hanukkah, which as far as I know is the only other major December holiday that one could be referring to when saying "Happy Holidays."

The house that we're staying at is in a beautiful part of London called Clapham. Clapham is the embodiment of classic modern London to me: the huge grassy, tree filled common, neat, row houses made of red bricks and wood painted white, elegant little shops lining the busy streets...it's just lovely, London, Clapham, England...I love it. I breathe a sigh of happiness every time I look out my fourth floor window at the perfect balance of buildings and nature coexisting in this city.

Yeah, the houses are four stories. That's quite a few stairs to climb! Our house is wonderful though, I like it a lot. We're basically borrowing someone's house while they're out of town.

I awoke at the unreasonable hour of 7 a.m. on Christmas, to the lovely sounds of rain falling on the house, and thunder rumbling. A Christmas storm. Well, if a white Christmas is out of the question, one can at least hope for a stormy Christmas. It's was very windy, and it lightninged (?) once. Liesl's family arrived around 9 a.m., once I'd fallen back asleep, and I went to let them in since Liesl--in her excitement to see them--accidentally closed the door, which locked, with the keys inside.

We had a present opening session by the Christmas tree, which was very nice. I got a bunch of nice stuff, including two books, which made me very happy, as I haven't really had a book to read in a while.We made Christmas dinner too, which was delicious. Christmas is just so wonderful, there's really no reason not to like it. Obviously the religious element has no appeal for me, but come on, a holiday where you get to give and receive a bunch of gifts? That's so awesome! Also, it just has such an absolutely wonderful mood, the Christmas season. It's full of joy, lights, decorations, food, good-smelling pine trees...what's not to love?


It's great seeing the Oestreichers, though it's kind of odd for Liesl and I being with people other than just each other, and seeing people in London that we only ever see in San Diego. But we're very excited to get to hang out with them for the next week, we're going to do a lot of fun things, including going to Wales tomorrow. The original purpose of that trip was to retrieve Liesl's guitar, but we're making a trip out of it, and we're borrowing someone's house that's right by the sea...it should be lovely.

I went for a run in the park today in the rain. My first run in London! Ah, I just love it here...I didn't mind a bit that the sounds of the city drowned out the sound of my music, it was just so good to be back in civilization, and in my favorite city.

Cheers!

Stephanie