It has, once again, been far too long since my last update.
The holidays were fantastic. Each weekend that C was down, we spent the Saturday in London doing various touristy/holiday type things. The day we went to Trafalgar Square, there was a giant mass of people all dressed as Santa; when we asked one what was going on, he said it was just a random thing of people dressing as Santa and getting drunk. Interesting idea for an event, it was quite random.
The last Saturday before Christmas, we went to the Christmas market on the South Bank. Of course, by the time we got on the train and got there, it was snowing pretty heavily. It hadn't been in the morning; we had gone to meet a friend of mine for breakfast who was on a semester program about to go home. On our way to a pub that was open at 9:30am, we stopped into a game shop so C could pick up a gift; when we came out, it was snowing. Then we finally stopped in at the pub, and when we finally came out... the entire street was white. We were about a block from the train station, and could barely see it. It was quite intense. But it was fun on the train up, as we'd brought my iPod to put Christmas music on shuffle. It felt like we had a soundtrack to our own Christmas movie in a way. And yet, we still ended up at an outdoor Christmas market. Mostly because there was a particular booth that I wanted to re-visit, as I hadn't been able to get much the last week due to a lack of cash. Then we gave up on doing touristy things; we were going to do the Natural History Museum, but the only tube line that goes to the station by it was closed due to strikes. So instead, we went to go visit a friend of his who recently moved down to London, and just hung out at his for the evening.
The Monday before Christmas was fantastic; we went to go see Les Miserables on the West End. All I can say is, if you ever get the chance, go see it. It is phenomenal.
The holidays themselves were a blast; we went up to C's folks for the two weeks we had off. It was a nice time, mostly spent just chilling and meeting up with various friends and family. And, for me, working on my final essays. I even got permission to redo my room, got a single bed so that I could also fit a desk in there so I could have a space to just shut off and do my work. Two full essays and a half-length literature review were due yesterday, so I spent all my time on those. Now I just have one last full-length paper that's a mix of literature review and research paper to do, to be finished before I go home again, as it's due while I'm in the States.
Yes, I am going back to the States! C and I will be flying back for a week, visiting family, and most of the rest of the time visiting potential wedding venues. Given our list of potential venues, this may take the entire week - and that's with the shortened list nixing all the places that we discovered were double or triple what we could afford! So that's also been keeping me busy, with trying to set up appointment times with each place. Going to be a busy week, that's for sure.
In the meantime, I have approximately one week in which to finish my last final essay. Granted, it's not due for two weeks, but I'm heading up to MK again a few days before we fly out, so that puts it at just over one week for me to get it done and turned in. Off to work! :)
