So here we are, the end of another year! This has certainly been one of the most exciting and fulfilling years of my life, with the move to London, finding a job that I enjoy, travelling around Europe, but not losing the best things from home, like my relationship with Todd and my friends in Toronto. 2008 will mean the end of this adventure, but I am truly excited about what will come next, and am looking forward to moving back to Canada and moving into the next stage of my life!

Todd arrived for the Christmas holidays on Saturday. We spent Sunday in Wimbledon (we think...it was so foggy, it was hard to tell!), where we walked around Wimbledon Common and took in a performance of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, a typical Christmas pantomime. It was certainly a different experience from a regular show, but we both enjoyed it quite a bit.

For Christmas Eve, we went to the carol service at St. Paul's, which was very nice, and then went to midnight Mass at my local church. Christmas Day ended up being rainy, so we had to forego the walking tour we had planned, and ended up just having a quiet day at home. Todd's parents sent us stockings full of presents, so we did have something to open!

On Boxing Day we left for our trip, which was our present to each other. We took the bus down to Dover, and the ferry over to Calais. There we rented a car (well, it turned out to be an SUV), and drove to our B&B chateau outside of Dieppe. The first day was spent visiting the D-Day landing beaches, and especially Juno Beach, where the Canadian forces landed, and there is now a Canadian museum there. Our second day we went to Mont-St-Michel, which I'd wanted to visit for quite some time, and it was just as lovely as I'd expected. Other than a minor lunch catastrophe (avoid the traditional Normandy stew!), it was a very nice day. On our last day, we stopped at the town of Vimy on the way back to Calais, where there is a Canadian war memorial for the First World War, including original trenches from the battle at Vimy Ridge.

Since we've been back, we've just been hanging around the neighbourhood. Tomorrow we are hoping to do a day trip, but we've heard rumours of rain again, so we'll see how it goes at the time.

In the meantime, here are a few pictures from the past week. I hope you all have a very happy New Year's, and all the best for 2008!

Todd outside the theatre in Wimbledon

The chateau we stayed at in France

Pretty street in Mont-St-Michel

The Vimy memorial

December 20, 2007 - 8:29 p.m. GMT

Just 5 days left!! And Todd will be here on Saturday, which is super exciting. I know I will have a hard time sleeping tomorrow night. :-)

So I ended up having an absolutely lovely weekend, despite my earlier concerns. I flew to Vienna on Saturday morning and then caught the train down to Graz. It was a beautiful trip through mountains and lots of snow!! It was the first snow I've seen this year, so I was quite excited.

I arrived in Graz in time to check in to the hotel and head over to Opera House, where Les Mis was playing. I walked through the centre of the old town, where they had a Christmas market set up, and it started to snow... well, it snowed the whole time I was in the show (over 3 hours), and was still snowing when I went to bed, so the next day the city was gorgeously white. I got up early and walked around a bit more before heading back to the train station and heading on to Bratislava, in Slovakia.

Unfortunately there was no snow in Bratislava, but after a quick lunch in a cellar restaurant near the main town square, I checked out the Christmas market there, as well as a museum, and just wandered the city for a while. Much too quickly, it was time to head to the airport and fly back. So it WAS a whirlwind trip, but the train travelling time gave me a chance to unwind, and it was great to visit a couple of places I hadn't been before.

This was my 4th time in Austria, and I love it more every time I go. The natural scenery is gorgeous, the culture and history are amazing, and the people are so friendly! I've found that in Germany as well - just whereever you are, people talk to each other, even if they're complete strangers. It's very different from what I'm used to in Canada and England, where people are more private, and it would take me a while to be totally comfortable with it I think, but I admire it.

Anyway! Here are a few pictures from the weekend!

Walking through Graz in the evening

The iconic clock tower in Graz in the morning

The Christmas market in Bratislava's main square

Bratislava Castle and some of the old town, from Michael's Tower

Since I've been back, I met up with Karen and Gill on Monday and we went to see Mary Poppins again before it closes. It was alright, but I liked it more the first time. Last night was our work Christmas party, and I drank more and stayed later than I meant to, and probably danced a little too enthusiastically to Footloose, but it was a good time. :-)

Todd and I are hitting a few snags with our plans for Christmas - namely that there is no public transportation in the city on Christmas Day! I just assumed there would be. I've never really thought about it, as I've always been home in a small town on Christmas Day. So we HAD planned to do a Charles Dickens Christmas Day walk, but it would now involve walking downtown in the first place, which would be a bit of a hike, so we're still debating it.

On Christmas Eve, we're going to try to go to the carol service at St. Paul's. I say "try" because we don't know how popular it will be and if we'll get in. It starts at 4, and we're going to arrive for about 2:30, so hopefully we'll be okay. It should be really nice! Then we'll have a dinner out (the fondue place we were going to go to is closed, sadly), and then do midnight Mass at my local church.

On Boxing Day we'll take the ferry to France and head for the chateau we've booked there for three days. We're planning to do day trips to the Juno Beach centre and Mont-Saint-Michel. It'll be my first time driving in France, so wish me luck!! We had to pay a lot extra to get a car with automatic transmission.

So that's our basic plans - New Year's is still completely up in the air. I am really quite sad to be missing out on the family celebration at home, but I think we'll enjoy ourselves here as well. Most importantly, Todd is staying for two whole weeks, and I can't wait to see him!!

In case I don't update again in the next few days, MERRY CHRISTMAS to everyone!! Hope your holidays are filled with love and happiness.

December 13, 2007 - 9:01 p.m. GMT

Just 12 days until Christmas! That's really hard to believe, mostly because it just doesn't feel like winter here! There's still no snow, and it's just in the past couple of days that the weather has started dipping below 0 overnight. I've also been a little distracted by my trips this month.

This past weekend was Istanbul, which was a really interesting trip. It was a bit of a new experience for me - although it's technically Europe, it is quite literally on the edge of it, and definitely has a different feel. As I was on my own, I got a bit of unwanted attention from the local men, both looking to sell me things, and looking for some companionship - got a bit annoying after a while. But despite all that, I saw some lovely things, and enjoyed myself quite a bit. Some pictures are below:

The view from the hotel terrace

The Haghia Sophia

A Byzantine mosaic in the Haghia Sophia

Crowded streets in the Bazaar district

Some of the city from the river

Some of the gorgeous harem at Topkopi Palace

Anyway, I'll update next week with more about our Christmas plans - hope you are all enjoying your December!!

December 7, 2007 - 9:51 a.m. GMT

Just 18 more days until Christmas! I'm getting really excited about it, despite the lack of snow, and overabundance of rain and cool temperatures (it was 15 degrees yesterday!). Todd and I have lots of fun things planned for the days leading up to Christmas, plus our fabulous France trip afterwards. So lots of things to look forward to. I went out and bought us some stockings the other day, just so we've got something fun in my apartment:

So let's see what I've been up to. Well, last weekend was bright and sunny for a change, so I spent Saturday in and around Regent's Park, which is also home to the London Zoo. I've been to better zoos in my life, but it was still a fun afternoon. I also walked along the canals for a bit, and checked out a bit of the shopping in Camden, so it was a pretty full day! A few pictures below:

It IS December, right? Roses struggling to hold on in Regent's Park

One of the gorillas at the zoo

A turtle just hanging around

Regent's Canal

Last night was our departmental Christmas dinner at work. There were 12 of us, and we went to Sofra in Mayfair, which was quite good. We were all stuffed after the appetizers though, I could hardly eat the main course! The director of the department gave out little gifts and thanked us all for our work over the year - I was given a set of angel wings!

Today I am actually leaving on a 4-day trip to Istanbul, Turkey! It was a pretty last minute trip - I only booked it last week, but I had the time to take off, and the prices were good, so why not? Anyway, my bus to the airport leaves in about half an hour, so perhaps I'd better get going! Hope you all have a great weekend, and I'll update with pictures from Istanbul next week!

November 25, 2007 - 8:41 a.m. GMT

This has been a fairly quiet week. Aside from work, I did manage to get most of my Christmas shopping done! This is helped by the fact that I am only really buying for two people - my two nephews. So a trip to Hamleys and I was pretty much done! They have most of the lights up all over the city now, and as I was standing on Oxford Street waiting for the bus, it started to snow! Only for about two minutes, but still - I saw flakes! I was pretty happy. :-) Here are the rather strange lights up on Regent Street. They look like molecules!

Other than that, really not much is going on. I am in full-on trip planning mode, working on a long weekend in December, a ski trip in January, and my big trip in March. I also MIGHT get to go to Amsterdam through work next week! I don't want to get too excited in case it doesn't go through, but it would be a lot of fun. I've never got to travel with a job, it would be a very nice first.

November 17, 2007 - 11:04 a.m. GMT

Okay! Time for a catch-up. We'll start off with my visit to Toronto, which was over MUCH too quickly. I arrived on Tuesday afternoon, and Todd missed his class (gasp!) to meet me at the airport. Although it had only been 6 weeks since I'd seen him, and not 6 MONTHS like the first separation, it was still wonderful to be with him again.

Wednesday was my birthday and I had lunch with Todd at his office, and then we went for dinner at Trapper's restaurant, which was a new one for us, but really nice. Thursday and Friday I cleaned up a bit (the apartment had suffered a bit in my absence) so that Peggy, Michelle and Susan could come over Friday night for some tacos, cosmos and talk! We were planning on going out afterwards, but started looking at my pictures, and several hours later... (I exaggerate, but not much!). Anyway, we decided to call it a night, but it was great to see them and catch up.

The weekend was fairly quiet, we went to one of our favourite local places for brunch. We had coffee with some of Todd's friends the following week, and I went into work one morning to say hi to people. I didn't leave nearly enough time, so it was pretty rushed, including a much-too-quick lunch with Eda. Todd and I went to the bank to talk mortgages (just speculative at this point), and I baked pies. We went swimming, for dinner at Spring Rolls, I had a lovely lunch with Karen and Gill and their mom as they were preparing for THEIR move to London.

So all in all it was a pretty quiet time, but relaxing, and I got to spend lots of time with Todd and Tiger, which was mostly the point! A few pictures...

I'd like to say this is Tiger giving me a kiss
but he's really just sniffing my head

Todd and I out for dinner on my birthday

Tiger trying to blend in as I'm packing my bags to come back

I had no time to reflect on leaving because Krista met me at the airport, having just come in on her flight from Winnipeg, to come to London for a visit! She stayed for two weeks, just heading home this morning. During her time here, we went to see Avenue Q, attended an East Village Opera Company concert with Karen and Gill (the first time they've played in London!), did a ghost walk in the evening and checked out some great Chinese and Indian cuisine, along with the requisite English pub, of course.

Last weekend we took a trip to Lisbon, Portugal, which has been on my list of places to visit as it was highly recommended by some of my former co-workers (who are Portuguese, so they may be a bit biased...). But it turned out they were right! It was a lovely place, not least because it was 25 degrees and sunny, when we had left 10 degrees in London! We wore t-shirts and even got a bit sunburnt!

We basically just had a day in Lisbon, so we tried to make the most of it, walking from our hotel down to the river, and then heading out to the Belem area, where the Belem tower and the Monastery are. We climbed up the tower for lovely views over the river (this was the setting-off point for the Portuguese explorers who 'discovered' half the world), and enjoyed the peacefulness of the gorgeous stone cloisters. We had yummy pastries and talked with roosters in a city park. The hotel was very nice, considering how ridiculously cheap it was - $45 for the night! That's not each, that's in total! And it had a bathtub, which I always get excited about, because my apartment in London does not, and I love my baths.

A few pictures from Lisbon are below:

Belem Tower

Palm trees out the window of Belem Tower

Tiled fronts on the buildings

The national theatre

So now that Krista's gone home, it's a matter of settling back into a routine until Christmas gets here! It's not too long now. There are several open-air ice rinks already open in the city, but it is £10 to skate for an hour! That seems outrageous to me, since at home it's mostly free, especially for outdoor rinks! Still, I know I will go. :-)

Todd and I have booked our room at a chateau in Normandy, France for the Christmas holiday. We're going to take the ferry to Calais, and then rent a car for use in France. It should be really wonderful, I'm very much looking forward to it.

Other than that, I don't have any real plans for the next few weeks, but I'm sure things will come up! I'll let you know what they are as they happen. :-) Hope you're all having a good November, and getting ready to get into the Christmas spirit!