Busy Week

So, I guess I should start with Happy Thanksgiving!!! Since they don't celebrate over here, I had to work today and we'll be celebrating with some friends on Saturday (be sure to check back for all the info on that). Nothing spectacular this week, but in combination we did quite a bit.

Ice Skating

Last Saturday one of the other Global Exchange girls set up for us to meet and go ice skating. They decorated a big section of Hyde Park (one of the main - and biggest - parks in central London). There was a little German Christmas market, and the trees were decorated, and they had a little carnival with funhouse and ferris wheel (which we abstained from). They also had an ice skating rink, which we had a lot of fun with. It was as packed a rink as I've ever been on, so it was a little difficult to get around, but it was fun to get out there and I think it helped get us into the Christmas mood.

Swell Season

If you've seen the movie "Once" this section will mean a lot more to you...

Jenna found out last week that the band Swell Season would be in town on Monday, so she got us tickets. They are basically the band that acted and did all the songs for "Once" last year, which was the movie that won the Oscar for best song. Anyway, good movie if you haven't seen it. They are an Irish band that plays a different kind of music - hard to explain but I say a mix between love songs and rock with a little Irish flavor. My good Dallas friend Steve could probably sum up the sound better (and hopefully will with a comment). Again, worth checking out if you haven't heard.

Anyway, they played at the Royal Albert Hall, which was built by Queen Victoria in the late 1800s. It was awesome. It is what you think of when you think of an opera house from the 1800s - box seats, big red puffy chairs, ornate decorations everywhere, big dome. When Glen Hansard, the lead, came out - he did a solo song without any microphone or amp or anything, and it sounded great just using the acoustics of the building. Pretty amazing. Oh yeah, and our seats were amazing - on the floor 7 rows back. You can see the pictures, which turned out pretty good as well.

The whole concert was pretty good. The first guy did some classic Irish stuff - like playing instruments we'd never seen before and singing in Celtic (I think). The second band was a fully instrumental band playing all Irish tunes, so that was different from what we've really seen before but we liked it a lot. Then on came the main event, which was just really good.

Sick

People say that you get sick here more often - mostly from riding the Tube with hundreds of other people every day - and it hit us this week. I wasn't feeling great all last weekend - mostly just congested. Then on Tuesday it just hit me and I was feeling terrible. Just a cold, but annoying all the same. Probably a mix of lack of sleep and it being cold and the Tube. Anyway, I took off early on Tuesday and most of the day Wednesday. Then today, Jenna started getting it, and she hasn't been feeling too good all afternoon. I guess I probably passed it to her, but I'm trying not to take too much of the blame.

That's about it, but check back soon to hear about our experience with cooking Thanksgiving dinner, which is sure to be interesting.