St Paul's Christmas Eve Carol service

One of the highlights of our trip was going to St. Paul's cathedral for a Christmas Eve carol service.  We had done a little research beforehand and heard that to even get in, we should show up 2-3 hours early.  Even though we thought this was a little nuts, since St. Paul's holds 2000-2500 people, we did...and we weren't the first in line!  We weren't even CLOSE.  From hearing those around us talking, this is a tradition for many people.  We hung out in the queue, eating lunch, drinking lattes (more on the coffee situation later), and just enjoyed the sights of people walking by.

When it was time to go into St Paul's, we got prime seats...halfway to the back. :)  At least we didn't have to sit on the sides where you couldn't see anything.  Unless you are short like me amidst the giants that seem to make up the English population (must be all the cream) and i couldn't see anything anyways.

So many of the places you go to say no photography, but we didn't see those signs here and saw many others around us with their gigantic SLRs out snapping away, so we took some pictures too:

At which point, we were told that no cameras were allowed.  So, these pictures are all the evidence we have that we went to St. Paul's on Christmas Eve.  :)

But really, the service was beautiful.  The choir was amazing.  I'm not sure if you actually call it a choir, but whatever it was, I got chills the whole evening.  The carols they sang were completely unfamiliar to us.  Even ones that we thought we knew would have different melodies.  It didn't matter, it was amazing to sit in St. Pauls cathedral and sing Christmas carols with 2000 people.  One of those things that I just can't adequately describe in words how moving and special it was.  I can now cross it off my bucket list. :)

Brighton

On 26 Dec, Steve left for the States (sad!) and I continued on from London to Crawley, where I'm staying to do my rotation here.  I'm so lucky to stay with my preceptor and her family, who have so generously opened their home to students over the past few years to get some experience with the much vilified (by the US) socialized medicine system here.  Since the UK celebrates the 26th as Boxing Day and since Christmas was a Sunday, we also had the 27th off of clinic.  I took the train from Crawley down to Brighton, a short 20 minutes away.  Brighton was and is a seaside resort town, popular since the early 1800s.  It was so beautiful, a mix of old and new.

The beach in Brighton is absolutely not like any beach I've ever been to before.  For starters, the only sand there was the sand that had obviously been imported for the beach volleyball courts!  It was just all pebbles everywhere else and made this wonderful sound when the water receded.  I don't know how well you can hear it here, but I made a short video of the ocean at Brighton (Can I call it the ocean?  I think it's technically the English Channel...I'm exposing my ignorance of waterways here!)

(So this was my first video message and not the best video you could ever hope for...sorry! Guess I didn't know where to look.  Also, my voice cuts out several time...sorry.  I know, I know, but I can't go back and film it again)

After visiting the beach, I headed off to the Royal Pavilion:

Like so many places here, I couldn't take any pictures inside.  But the history of this place is fascinating!  This was the favorite residence before he was king of King George IV, the son of the mad King George III of American Revolution fame.  His father was very frugal, which George IV thought was silly.  He lived an extravagant lifestyle in London until a mistress brought him to Brighton, which he fell in love with.  he rented an old farmhouse, to stay in Brighton and party.  People thought that he had become frugal, until he converted it to this Asian-inspired building.  The inside is so far out!  Seriously, you should google-image search the Royal Pavilion dining room chandelier.  Totally over the top.  It fell out of favor with the King later in life and Queen Victoria, his successor, never really fell for it like he did (mainly because it surprisingly only had like 5 bedrooms and she had like 9 kids.  Really.)  At one point, it was even converted into a hospital for Indian soldiers at the beginning of the 20th century.  It was a cool place to walk through and learn a little more about English history.

After I walked through the Royal Pavilion, I walked through a shopping area known as The Laines.  I likened it to an English version of Boulder shops.  Very eclectic, hippy-ish, and lots of handmade bags.  No pot shops here, though.  Refreshing!

After all that, I still had a few hours before returning to Crawley.  I had a nice picnic on the beach, walked through the after Christmas madness of the mall, which was very very similar to our malls.  Except that the stores were not what I recognized.  Anyway, here are a few more pictures of my day at Brighton:

Sunset on the Brighton Beach: I was so happy to see the sun for a brief minute

The pier: full of games, fried foods, and amusement park rides

I didn't take off my shoes or socks to get my feet in the water, but I definitely got a little wet.  Glad for my Goretex trail running shoes I got for this trip!  And yes the water was very very cold!

Days 1

We're at the end of the second day in London, but it really feels more like the end of the first.  I have a feeling these days are going to fly by!  We arrived yesterday (19 Dec) early in the morning and couldn't check into our flat we're staying at until 2 in the afternoon.  We came and dropped our bags off and then took a bus off to visit the sites in London...only we took the correct bus the wrong direction.  So we got a nice tour of the Dulwich Library (very similar to ours back home...not surprisingly) and then hopped on a bus to a tube station.  We headed to Picadilly Circus:

Where it promptly began raining.  Of course, we had forgotten our umbrellas (just left in our luggage! Not forgotten in CO), weren't wearing our rain coats, and were freezing.  So, what's a Schley to do but duck into a warm cafe for a nice latte:

Properly refreshed, we walked about the area around Piccadilly Circus (btw, Piccadilly is a reference to a Piccadill collar, which is the type that Shakespeare wore, and the Circus is just a reference to how busy it is.  There was no BigTop, like I was imagining).  After checking this area out, we headed back to the flat to unpack and take rinse the travel dirt off. The flat has no shower, just a bathtub.  At some point, someone added a showercurtain rack, but the ceiling is so low that even I can't actually stand to take a shower.  So, baths it will be!  We fell asleep very early, embarrassingly early.  Early than 7:30 early.  And we slept until 10:30 the next morning!  That took care of the jet-lag problem!  Our next day was just as eventful-only I just realized it's 11:30pm right now and time to go to sleep.  We will try to update this again tomorrow!

Just a brief overview of Day 2:
Tower of London
Jack the Ripper Tour
St. Paul's Cathedral