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. :)