Merry Christmas from London

Another cool pub in London

I'm happy to say that my mom and Denis arrived safe and sound on the 23rd. After 5 days on the road (almost would have been faster by boat) they finally made it to London.

The same could not be said for my mom's bag (or the jars of BBQ and hot sauce that I had special requested!) which never did show up. Sad, but not a holiday spoiler.

We packed in as much as we could in six days and had a great time. We saw the Christmas carols concert at the Royal Albert Hall. We hit up many many pubs and feasted almost without pause.

We saw Billy Elliot at the Victoria Palace theater, we toured the city and saw the sites.

View from the church tower, Rye

We even got out of London and made a day trip to Rye, which is a very cool place. Did you know that there is a society of 20.000 church bell ringers in England? Here's my shout out to the CCBR. Apparently it's a tight knit and happy bunch...but they are lacking in youthful new recruits. C'mon, kids! 

We sadly said goodbye this morning to my mom and stepdad and I know hope they are enjoying a uneventful trip back home.

A bundled up Anya in Rye, East Sussex

Just as the holiday hangover is about to kick in, Anya and I head to Ukraine on January 2 to celebrate Ukrainian Christmas (Jan 7). I haven't been back to Ukraine in 5 years and am really looking forward to it. I'll post lots of pictures on our return.

I hope everyone reading this had a very merry Christmas and will kick off the new year in very high spirits. My best to you all. Happy holidays.


Nate

I felt smarter just having taken the picture

Tower of London with The Shard (under construction) in the background