December 22-23

       I wore brown socks with black shoes today - ewwww. It was too difficult to change once I realized what I had done, so I just tried to hide it by pulling my pant legs down a bit. But I'm skipping ahead. I'll start with yesterday.
       Two of my American friends, Kim and Sarah, were finally back from Edinburgh! There were still recovering from their trip though, so I hit the city again by myself. Before I left, I sat down with God again and we had an interesting exchange. Instead of directly praying the whole time, I ended up writing down my thoughts about my faith as they came to me in the moment. Specifically, I wrote about what I would tell my new non-Christian friends if I could tell them anything just out of the blue. That's where the motivation for the piece came from. It was a liberating exercise, and I posted my thoughts in a note on facebook if you want to read it. The original rough draft went into a little red notebook that I keep in my wallet for moments of inspiration. I'm sorry to say that I don't have many of those, but God gave me one yesterday. Maybe He'll give me more and send some songs along with them. I'm still waiting for that.
       More sightseeing yesterday! I started off at Green Park which is right next to Buckingham Palace and then my way over to the Palace, of course, for some pictures. Even though I had my handy-dandy map, I still got a bit turned around and took the roundabout way toward Hyde Park. I came across a number of monuments on my way, most of which were war memorials. It was like being in D.C., only the British version. Hyde Park is putting on what they call "Winter Wonderland"  which is basically a Christmas carnival and market. It reminded me of the Christmas markets in Vienna actually, minus the amusement park part. (Vienna is better.) Kensington Gardens is right next to Hyde Park, so I decided to make the walk. It was much farther than it looked on the map, but I had time. There is a little lake/pond between the two grounds called The Serpentine which was frozen over, that's how cold it was. There were all kinds of ducks and geese and swans and pigeons swimming in the small edge parts that weren't frozen or else they were just chillin' on the ice. It was a nice but long walk to Kensington Gardens where I didn't actually encounter anything that looked like gardens. I must have missed something, but the whole place just looked like a huge, cold park. Yes, I saw the Peter Pan statue (and totally thought of Winning London, Blee). I wanted to see the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain and the Palace too but it was getting dark and I was getting a bit tired of walking.
       Instead, I walked past the Royal Albert Hall and the Albert Memorial toward the Natural History Museum where I could warm up and walk less. Apparently, this place is supposed to be pretty cool, but I've already told you that I'm not much of a museum person. Still, I feel the need to at least drop by and say hello. I zoomed through a number of the exhibits but found them pretty boring. I had flashbacks to fieldtrips I took in elementary school where they would make you shuffle through museums for what seemed like forever, and I realized that museum-ing by yourself is way better because you can leave whenever you want! The best part of the museum was the Great Hall because the architecture and decorations were breathtaking (facebook pics to follow). After that, I was done and caught the tube back to campus where I tried to work on an essay but got very little done and fell asleep early.
       Today, I woke up feeling a bit frustrated about getting so little homework done the night before, but I quickly got over that. Sarah, Kim, and I went to Asda to get food for our Christmas dinner, and that took up the morning and the first part of the afternoon. Poor Sarah was too sick to go out with us later, but Kim and I went to the city for the afternoon/evening. First, we stopped off at Leicester Square to see what kind of cheap tickets we could find. The deals weren't screaming at us, so we decided to check out the theater where the The Nutcracker is playing instead. I've found that just going to the theater a few hours before a show is the best way to find super cheap tickets. We got tickets for 10 pounds each (SCORE!), and then headed to Harrod's to kill some time. I'm not sure why that place is supposed to be so cool. Apparently it's aimed at a different demographic than any I fall into. It's way too expensive, and I'm not interested in most of the things they sell (possibly because of the price but also because of personal taste). That place is just plain overwhelming, and it's huge! We left pretty quickly to find some dinner before the show.
       We landed at a lovely Italian restaurant where I had a nice glass of red wine, some delicious bruschetta, and a skimpy salad. It looked like they had run out of lettuce, but I didn't want to ask, haha. It looked like a plate full of stuff you would put onto crackers, not a place full of salad. Oh well, I ate most of it and we went to The Nutcracker.
       I'm sad to say that I was very disappointed with the London version of The Nutcracker. Seriously, people what was going on? I'll begin my criticism by saying that I am not a ballerina, and I will never be a ballerina or a choreographer, but I think my opinion as a member of the audience carries some weight at least. The choreography was plain and often uninteresting, a number of the songs were too slow, the storyline was way different, so many of the dancer's movements ignored the cues of the music, and a number of the best parts were left out (such as the lady with the giant dress and the candy-cane dancers). I didn't even clap very much during the span of the show, but instead just sat there with a look of confusion on my face. It's hard for me to fathom that the Sacramento Ballet can put on a production that is 10 times better than one in London. That seems backwards, but it's true, in my opinion anyway for what it's worth. I left the theater laughing out of shock and disappointment. Good thing we only paid 10 pounds for those tickets. Kim and I got Haagen Daas again after the show to redeem the evening, and then we went back to campus.
     Sorry this post wasn't particularly riveting. The creative part of my brain must have already gone to sleep. Or maybe it's in a sugar coma from the Haagen Daas :)

Prayer Request of the Day: That Heathrow would get their act together so my friend Ashley can get here next Wednesday morning!