PARCEL!

After quite some anticipation (and worry that it may have been lost), on Wednesday I received my Christmas parcel from my Dad :) 

I laughed so much at the toothbrush - it is a traditional item in the Jones Christmas stocking (which is what the parcel was), and mum and I had had a conversation about why I had not given her a toothbrush (I didn't think it needed to take up space in my little international parcel when she could just get one at the local drugstore)... little did I know there was a Canadian toothbrush on its way to me!

Bunny on my card! (bunnies are a long running joke between my Dad and I... whether or not he had that in mind, what a cutie!).

The white blocks in the ziploc are some of the soap that Connie and Brad made in their soap making class. I admit, when I first saw it I was like, fudge! But then I poked and smelt it and was like, soap? Soap. When I emailed Dad to thank him I double checked, and he made sure to tell me not to eat it :P

Probably the highlight of the parcel (besides the liquorice, which I've eaten almost all of now - thanks B ;P) were these gorgeous earrings from a shop in Black Diamond. I got the parcel in the morning before I headed off to school for our first full day of the live project, and my first day of being a PM, so they worked very well with my "Hello, I am a responsible adult well equipped to be your project manager" outfit (skirt, boots, button up shirt) and I got quite a few complements on them (I also brought the gingersnaps I had made the weekend and gave my entire group cookies... I may be becoming "that" person).

I mean, I've always been "that" person, but still.

As you can see, the trip overseas was not kind to the box. I was kind of amazed it was still holding together (the one right under it was the box my Hanukah present came in... which fared much better).

Merry Ho Ho Holiday

So first off, a brief tour of Sam and Tom's pub!

Sketchy narrow stairs leading up to the flat.

Christmas day Megan and I helped Tom clean up and set up the pub a bit while we were waiting for the very, very good breakfast Carol had made to finish up. After that Megan, Carol and I began cooking christmas dinner and Sam, Tom, and Richard headed down to open the pub (which was open 11-3).

We took a break at one point to have a mulled wine/hot cider break :)

Megan was having way too much fun and was way too amused by how much that cabbage looked like brains.

See? Too much fun.

Sweet po-ta-toe.

For the meat-eaters, Tom prepared a cooked goose.

Megan and I chopped and peeled ALL the things. Megan also picked through a bag of pink, off-white, and white mini marshmallows (because apparently they don't just do bags of plain white marshmallows in this country) to get enough white marshmallows to top the yams.

Apple pie <3

The cat was harassing us.

Carol made some awesome buns from scratch (though they had some difficulty rising, since the flat was absolutely freezing).

Cutie :) (points for anyone who spots the apron and guesses who made it!)

Can you guess what traditional family dish Megan made for Christmas dinner?

CAT

Boooooooons.

You guessed right! Granny/Christine's jello salad! (also, I'm sure Tom and Richard were a bit confused about the fact that I kept referring to Megan and I's grandmother as Christine, while Megan refers to her as Granny).

Lookit all that food...

Carol was having some challenges with the gas stove.... while I, sitting in front of it, was just hoping I wasn't going to light on fire.

BUNS SELFIE.

BUNS SELFIE.

We also broke out the wine around this point.

Holla. It was also around this point that I had a brief facetime with the fam jam back in Canada, to the great amazement of my Grandmother.

Megan and Tom.

And finally, before dinner, we did stockings and presents!

It was all very colour coordinated, save Tom's lovely Christmas fairy princess wrapping paper.

Totally awesome socks from Carol.

My major contribution to the party... just couldn't resist how awesome it was (no, its not a giant lindor... its a ball filled with normal sized lindor... I'm not sure which would actually be better).

Megan was the only one to receive a safety crown from the crackers. No pointy edges for her!

After dinner, I had another lovely facetime with the Jones clan, resulting in our official family Christmas picture for 2013.

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas! I know I had an awesome Christmas day surrounded by awesome people :)

Bath (or, if you're English, bAAAAAAAth)

Got up Monday morning (December 23) and checked out of the hostel - this is the hostel from the outside by the way - it was, I think, a converted courthouse and quite an impressive building from the outside. I think you could actually stay in converted jail cells as well, but they cost a considerable amount more than my little sardine-style room.

Headed out from King's Cross tube station to Paddington Station, where I caught the train to Bath. It was about an hour and a half trip, though the train was delayed a bit due to inclement weather. It was absoloutly pouring when I arrived, so I decided to get a cab up to the hotel where Aunt Carol was staying, where I met up with her, Megan, Samantha (my cousins), and Sam's fiancé, Richard. Carol elected to stay at the hotel for the night, so the rest of us headed back to the pub, where we spent the night hanging around in the flat upstairs, and also met Tom, Sam's business partner.

The next morning Megan and I got up bright and early-ish and headed out for brunch in Bath, before wandering around the (very small) downtown. It was Christmas Eve, so pretty much nothing was open, but I got a good look at the outside of places, and peered over a wall on my tiptoes into the Roman Baths.

The Bath Abbey is a really gorgeous building. And right next door (the building on the right in this picture) is the Roman Baths.

Roman Baths. The Roman Baths complex is a site of historical interest in the English city of Bath. The house is a well-preserved Roman site for public bathing. The Roman Baths themselves are below the modern street level. There are four main features: the Sacred Spring, the Roman Temple, the Roman Bath House and the Museum holding finds from Roman Bath. The buildings above street level date from the 19th century.

The first shrine at the site of the hot springs was built by Celts, and was dedicated to the goddess Sulis, whom the Romans identified with Minerva. The name Sulis continued to be used after the Roman invasion, leading to the town's Roman name of Aquae Sulis ("the waters of Sulis"). The temple was constructed in 60-70 AD and the bathing complex was gradually built up over the next 300 years.

Considering how hard it had been raining the day before, it was a gorgeous day out, though a bit cold.

The Abbey Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Bath, commonly known as Bath Abbey, is an Anglican parish church and a former Benedictine monastery in Bath, Somerset, England. Founded in the 7th century, Bath Abbey was reorganised in the 10th century and rebuilt in the 12th and 16th centuries; major restoration work was carried out by Sir George Gilbert Scott in the 1860s. It is one of the largest examples of Perpendicular Gothic architecture in the West Country.

Candid shot of Megan and the Roman Bath (apparently it is singular).

The downtown of Bath really is quite lovely.

Megan and I *might* have taken a large number of selfies together over our trip. *Maybe*

But hey, Roman Centurion! With bonus tinsel!

There was a small amount of flooding in the area due to the heavy rainfall and storms most of Britain has been experiencing lately. Which is super fun, let me tell you.

I'm going to do Christmas Day in a separate post, but chronologically, it goes HERE.

Boxing Day, Megan, Carol, and I wandered down into downtown Bath for a very, very late breakfast (like, 2pm late - I was a bit confused when we walked in and the waitress asked if we were eating or just drinking because I was like who on earth would just be drinking so early, then I realized... not that early).

I love the little doors. Apparently they're just storage/delivery, which is boring, but they look super cool!

After "breakfast" we went for a walk - we were trying to find a high place from which to look down at Bath, which is situated between seven hills, but google maps led us astray and we just ended up wandering around for a bit...

Saw this squirrel sitting on a post (which is the most exciting British wildlife I've seen) and I stopped to take a picture of him, but then he started coming at me...

So I ran away. Clearly this is HIS turf.

We did end up finding a lovely park on our walk, which crossed both a canal and a railway line via some pretty cool bridges.

There was also this posh little building inside the park, which our best guess as to its purpose was "rain shelter" but was actually commemorating something (what, exactly, it was commemorating, I cannot remember anymore).

Everyone being tourists (and slightly fuzzy).

Random house in the middle of the park...

Park selfie!

The water had gone down significantly in the two days since last time we crossed the bridge (apparently the bridge is only one of two like it in... the UK? the world? ... that was designed to have shops lining it) so as you cross the bridge there are narrow little shops, and if you aren't paying attention, you wouldn't even know you were crossing water.

The water had also gone down enough to reveal this thing (what is it? Who knows!)

But the park is no longer underwater.

Major tourist.

We had a late, lovely little dinner at the hotel to finish off the day (I sent Logan a picture of this after he sent me the sad salad he was eating, causing him to inform me we were no longer BFFs... </3)