Merry Christmas from Northern Ireland!

Well everyone, its that time of year again! Can you believe it? We can't. This is a picture of us getting into the Christmas spitit in front of the outdoor skating rink that have in London. We didn't actually skate, just watched from the sidelines. It seemed a much safer option. Skating is such a novelty that they charge ridiculous prices to skate AND those prices only allow you to skate for 1 hour! They have allotted times, so if you don't get on the ice right when your allotted time starts, you only get the remaining part of the hour! It was something like $25 per person, per hour to skate. More if you wanted the romance of skating at night. It was hilarious to watch people try to skate though. Nobody could! Every person on the ice was a worse skater than myself. (Now that is saying something.) Grown men were falling all over the place and everyone was grabbing onto the walls and wobbling along the edge and running into eachother. I would be an even worse skater than I am if I had to pay $25 for an hour of practice on a busy rink too, so I suppose you really can't blame them!


This Christmas we have the privledge of being with Jonathan's family in Belfast for the Holidays. We are having a great, relaxing time. We really appreciate all the things that Aunt Eileen and Uncle Trevor have done to make us feel so welcome here. Aunt Eileen must have some sort of professional experience in accomodating tired backpackers, as she seems to know exactly what we need. She even had fresh new toothbrushes out for us to use! And a washing machine! What luxuries! Anyways, we hope that everyone has a great Christmas and Happy New Year! We are looking forward to coming home and seeing friends and family next year. It sounds longer than it is, eh? (Haven't lost the Canadian 'eh')

ps. Thank you for the Christmas cards! It is great to get something from home when we are so far away for the holidays!

Blogger is letting us upload pictures now, so here are the London ones:

This is the British Museum lobby. It is the largest covered lobby in the world, I think. Its a couple football fields in length! In the middle part is a huge reading room open to the public. Actually the whole museum was free! It was pretty interesting, for a museum.
















Westminster Abbey. This isn't actually the front of the church, but the side. I always thought that it was the front. It looks wet all the time, doesn't it? We actually even had the chance to go to a service in side. It was beautiful. (As you would expect)












Wicked! What a wonderful wonderful 3 hours of my life! Too bad Jonathan wouldn't let me see it again the next night... and the next... and the next. Something about wanting to see other shows as well. How close minded! Do you know that Glinda the Good Witch actually smiled at me during one of her songs? Ya, we're close friends now.











For the Zehrs lady who wanted to see what the flowers that were sent to Ireland looked like. (aka: The Christmas flowers mom sent Aunt Eileen.)

ohhhh... awwwww















A photo of Big Ben (although the name Big Ben refers to the bell that you can't see, not the actual tower) that I imported in much to large, much to Jonathan's dismay.

















It's Christmas time in Trafalger Square! The Christmas tree is apparently donated to London ny Norway. There were carols every night just on the steps in front of the Art Gallery, which you can see there.









We had more pictures, but apparently this is all Blogger will allow us to upload for the time being. We'll keep trying though.. for our fans!