Last night! Oh my goodness.

We took the Tube to go see Buckingham Palace at night, but when we were getting off there was a sign that said, "Winter Wonderland" with an arrow pointing the opposite direction from the palace. We obviously had to go.

It was a real Christmas fair! There was tons of food and little shops and rides too! Rachel and I rode a spinny ride and my gloves flew out of my pocket, but it was worth cold hands--I have another pair anyway. I took a picture of a restaurant place called "WURST KOCH" for Hank's girlfriend, whose last name is Koch.

Pretty soon after we arrived, we found a Santa statue and I wanted a picture of Rachel and Hillary next to it. We were waiting for the people before us, and the guy said, "I don't believe in Santa Claus." and I told him he was ruining the spirit of Christmas, and he recognized my accent as American (not tough to do). He's from Massachusetts, here at cooking school, and we hung out with him and his roommates (Jaquim (sp?) from Portugal, who was quite sweet, and Mariana from Brazil who was very beautiful and took pictures of everthing) for the rest of the night. He took Hillary on the tallest free fall tower in the world, Rachel and I rode our ride. We tried to go ice skating but it was expensive and packed. Instead there was dancing (more like jumping around a bit and making fun of everyone there, who were all rather sauced), plus a requested "ChaCha Slide" that made it feel like we were in middle school again. Dinner of chocolate covered strawberries, bananas, pears and pineapple. The strawberries were the best (though the mulled wine might have to take the cake for my favorite part of the night). It was all such fun!

We might be hanging out with them again tonight, though the three of us are all going to musicals! I got a <$30 ticket to Avenue Q! Very exciting.

Today we tried to do changing of the guard but didn't have much of a view. I figure I'll just go again with Emily and get there super early. Hillary and I did see the changing of the horse guards though, which was fun but not as cool. She and I got up early and walked a ton to get me my Avenue Q ticket. By that time it was late enough for our three-day pass to kick in--we got it offpeak hours which means after 9:30 in the morning. I got my ticket to Dublin for TOMORROW!

Now laundry and probably hanging out in Hyde Park with a nice coffee and some writing or a book. Maybe the Tate, maybe the Museum of Science and Industry.