Merry Christmas from Rome

Tour Guide for a Day

We spent this past weekend showing our good friends Jenna and Andrew around London. They were here for the weekend from New Zealand, the first stop on a 5 week tour of Europe.

It was fun doing lots of touristy things, visiting the places I usually stay away from because they're so busy, especially the weekend before Christmas!

The weekend turned out to be pretty sunny, but freezing cold. Much worse for Jenna and Andrew than for us, since we're used to it now. I may have forgotten how hard I found the cold when we first arrived, and made them walk for ages instead of catching the tube...

Christmas Cruise on the Thames

My work had our Christmas function last Friday. Partner's were invited this year and we went on a four hour cruise along the Thames, down past Greenwich and back.

We were originally going to have a lovely flat bottomed boat which glides along the Thames, but at the last minute we were switched to a huge sailing barge, which has a narrower bottom and is MUCH rockier. Needless to say, I spent a LOT of time on up deck seasick, wearing several jackets and my scarf as a hat because it was freezing.

Random photos from last weekend

Here are some random photo's we took last weekend. We went down to the Christmas Farmer's market and got caught in the rain. 

Westfield and Westminster

We went for a walk along the Southbank a couple of weeks ago to look at their Christmas markets. We didn't count on it being super busy, so we didn't really get a chance to look closely at the markets. But we grabbed some Churros, and just enjoyed the sunshine and strolled the full length of the Southbank from the London Eye all the way down to Tower Bridge.

Oxford Street Christmas Lights

Last week we visited Oxford Street after work because we had to buy Bradley a suit for my Christmas party. Usually I try to stay as far away from Oxford Street as possible, but they do have the best Marks and Spencer in London, so we had to make the trip.

It was raining, which actually turned out well, since everyone went home and Oxford Street was the emptiest I have ever seen it.

The Christmas lights on Oxford Street and Regent Street are pretty amazing, they're just huge, and all the huge department stores decorate their stores and windows, so it feels really Christmassy!