Christmas Scenes from London

Although I definitely had the bug to travel for another long weekend this Christmas month, I decided to spend these last couple weekends in London before heading back to the States for the holidays. Amidst the overcrowded streets and the looming credit crunch, there were some great holiday sights to see.

View pics here: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/bbergey/HolidayScenesInLondon#

I'll try to make this brief, but if you want to know more about anything I saw, just ask!

The borough of Hammersmith and Fulham (my home!) was decorated for the season quite early with real Christmas trees on the light posts and a large tree in Lyric square outside my work. The brand new largest urban mall in Europe, just two tube stops from me, was decorated in splendor. Our first (and only) snowfall so far occurred in October, the first time since the early 1900s. The premiere shopping roads of Oxford and Regents Street downtown were aglow with lights, music and fabulous window displays. The shops big and small were filled with festive goods and far too many people; I did learn that one should never go to Harrods during the Christmas season unless you don't want to see anything but more people. There are many great ice skating rinks around town, including the most scenic one (in my opinion) at the Natural History Museum, and the largest one set aside a German Christmas Market in Hyde Park. I had some great bratwurst, a pretzel and some German sweets at the Christmas market, and I even enjoyed some traditional German Christmas Stollen at a local Germany bakery.

Some very exciting changes took place at work this month as well. Us RegOnliners moved to our own office due to overcrowding in the original office we shared with our parent company. The office is very nice, and much more comfortable and quiet than the old one (and smells nicer too). We also had our own Christmas party last week where we enjoyed an excellent night out in London! We started at the Ice Bar, which is a bar made completely of ice...even the glasses! It is a constant -5 degrees celsius and all of the ice is shipped from an ice hotel in Norway. New ice is shipped every 4 months and a redesign is done then. After we had enough of the cold, we visited a few pubs before heading to Los Locos for dinner. We were very lucky and got a nicely decorated table that was empty because a reservation hadn't shown up. I have to admit that the Mexican food was very tasty considering it was in London! We had an absolute blast and more pics can be found on Facebook if you're interested.

I hope to post some pics and blogs about some of my experiences in the States. I'm sure I'll be in a bit of shock hearing American accents everywhere and refreshing my memory on why the US is such a great place. I hope to take note of everything that strikes me as odd because I think it'll be quite strange from a different perspective. Anyway, I figured I'd write some kind of Christmas message while I have the time. The city of London is a confusing place. Part of me gets fed up with the hustle and bustle, the over-crowded everything, and the lack of public friendliness & overall Christmas cheer. It can be a very impersonal place. However, it's also a great place that is full of culture, excitement and charm if you know where to look. When you find some of those places, it's even more pleasant because it's not expected. Sometimes you just have to look a bit further for something you're missing, but it doesn't mean that it is any less significant. I will be the first to admit that I sometimes get lost with everyone else, getting impatient with slow people on the way to work or not smiling to strangers on the street. But I've tried hard these last few weeks to make a difference to a few people, whoever they are, by giving up my tube seat or smiling to the random passerby. This isn't meant to be some cheesy Christmas lesson, but I do want to say one thing. Wherever you are and whoever it is with, it's never an excuse to forget your roots. Enjoy the season and what it has to offer. I'll see you all soon!!

PS - I'll be in Colorado the 16th-23rd and then in Oregon until January 3rd. If you want to see me please let me know! Email, call, text, facebook, blog comment, whatever. I'll be working while I'm in Colorado and I'm afraid the time is going to go real fast. I'll have my cell activated starting on the 16th and you can reach me at 303-995-7741. Cheers!