Cash and Carried in the City

It was sad to say that this entire break Matt & I ventured out of our flat only a few times for more reasons because we had to and less reasons that we wanted to. After a couple of days though we decided to get out and explore a couple of the places that we traditionally go to before Christmas. Unfortunately this was easier said than done as every place we seemed to go was disrupted or closed.

We headed to Whitechapel Art Gallery in East London to look at an art exhibit about the wars in Lebanon (http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/walid-raad-miraculous-beginnings). It was more of a documentary display through the viewpoint of the artist, but was interesting to see. I vaguely remember the event when I was young, but the small gallery space was a place that I've been wanting to go for some time.

Then we headed to Central London to grab something to eat which was made difficult by a closed overground station and an unfamiliar part of town. Our favorite american diner Ed's was closed for the holiday so we ventured around Soho until coming across the only open establishment we could find.

After walking over to Trafalgar Square to see the Christmas tree which is donated to the city by Norway as a thanks for England's help during WWII. It is decorated in the traditional Norwegian fashion with strands of plain white lights. After this we walked towards the river where we saw a stampede of people going into a gated area. Announcements in the tube said the viewing area for the fireworks shut by 9pm or when full so we assumed we'd go in and check it out. IT WAS PACKED! Anyway, we waited the 4.5 hours waiting for the display. I was surprised to find that so many people were packed in and just standing around while some were better prepared with food, champagne, drinks, etc. They started the Radio 1 broadcast with music and djs at about 10 and then a HUGE fireworks display...probably the largest we've ever seen! (More photos were added to the sidebar slideshow since my previous post) We pushed our way out of the space though and walked a couple of bridges down to catch the train, which wasn't too bad but took us another hour to get home.

It was a very long night and I hurt for the entire next day from all the standing, but it was a fantastic memory to share with Matt. Our anniversary started with a bang and ended with a wonderful Italian dinner at Carluccio's. One more day of holiday and then we're both going to struggle to get back on schedule. Neither of us felt like we had a holiday, but I guess we have a final number of pages in our yearly album for the memorable last few weeks.