:: Vela Dare ::

:: Thursday, December 21, 2006 ::

:: I'm Leavin' On a Jet Plane.... ::

...But, thankfully, I *do* know when I'll be back again.

I should definitely be asleep right now, but seeing as I am not I thought I would write a quick post before I disappear for a week. Tomorrow I'm taking a bus into London, (hopefully) finding my way to the Heathrow from the bus station, and then flying to Brussels! Charlotte's meeting me at the airport and I'm *so* excited to see her! Apparently we're going to a club tomorrow night, which should be interesting considering my rather rusty/limited French. Oh well... as long as I find out the word for "cranberry" i should be alright, and if all else fails I do know the word for "orange", teehee. She has Friday and Saturday off, during which time I think we're going to attempt to see "everything"... as Charlotte said, "good thing Brussels isn't that big". Then on sunday, I'm taking a train from Brussels to Paris where I will once again be trying to find my way to a place whose location I only have a vague idea of. Should be fun... or at the very least an adventure. At least I have taken the metro there before, and while it was years ago maybe some of those memories will kick in once I'm there. As of now I have virtually no idea what our plans in Paris will be. Domonique and I have discussed going to a Christmas service at a cathedral some where (obv. Notre Dame is the first choice, but it must get really nuts there, so who knows.) I would imagine most of the typical sight seeing will be done.. I'm hoping to get in a few of the places I didn't get to last time I was in Paris. Archaeology nerds that we are, Domonique and I are hoping to go to the catacombs! I will never forget when I was in Paris last time, and Charlotte et al. suggested it half jokingly and I said quite enthusiastically, "yes! that'd be great". Haha.

As for the past week or so... Domonique, John and I put on a holiday dinner. I made a roast chicken, latkes, home made cranberry sauce, peas and pear/goatcheese salad. Domonique made some reaaaaally delicious brownies that we had with irish cream-laced double cream. The meal was followed by scrabble and kings cup (oh, the things we're contributing to English culture, haha.) Unfortunately I couldn't find my cards, and John had forgotten his so we actually made our own using some notebook paper I had. Now *that* is what I call resourceful. Or something.

Most of you have also seen the result of a trip to see Santa! No, I didn't decide to take a day trip to the northpole... as it turned out, Santa (and a significant portion of his village) was making a pit stop at the mall in Broadmead. We'd spotted him last week, and a joking suggestion suddenly became a must-accomplish idea. I was sort of worried that they'd turn us away, or at the very least look at the silly Americans with scornful amusement. Fortunately, the girl (elf-lass?) at the booth didn't seem to think this was terribly strange. Of course... we were older than all the other visitors by 16-20 years but that's neither here nor there. When we got to the front of the line the elf that came out to get the next "kids" came to get us. She looked at me and Domonique and then down around our legs to see where our young'un had gone off to. "No, it's just us!" we said, laughing. The women behind us thought it was hi-LAR-ious (in a laughing with us kind of way) that we were going to get our pictures taken with Santa. They laughed nearly the entire time while we waited just outside the little room where Santa was. Santa himself was quite amused (as you might have noticed from the picture.) He also assured us that "you can never be to big to sit on Santa's lap!" which was meant only fractionally as sketchy as he could have said it. So, while Santa might not have been 100% pure, he could have been much, much worse. Besides, the poor guy probably gets peed on 5 times a day.... taking a picture with a couple (obviously silly) 20-year-olds is probably a huge highlight in the day. At least, if I were him it would be. :-P

Well, it is well and truly time for me to sleep. I don't want to be too groggy to find my way tomorrow!


Oh, and for those readers who may not have recieved this via email... here's the card I made out of our photo with Santa. (My mom thinks he looks like he's getting a little frisky... eep!)


[Click to enlarge]

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