Merry Chistmas Everybody!

Hope you all had a fantastic holiday and that your new years celebrations are going to be just as good! We had a very nice though quiet Christmas here in London with our flatmates.

Anyway, here are some photos...

cheers!
alletta


The flat all dressed up for a Christmas dinner!
And here are some really big guns at the Imperial War Museum...



Myself and a bit of rather large ordinance.
And myself and a chunk of the Berlin Wall...

Long time no blog!

Howdy folks! Our apologies for the very long delay. Life has been hectic to say the least and so inevitably things like the blog have been getting put on the back burner the last few weeks.

Life in London is going pretty well. We are finally starting to feel pretty settled in at the flat. There was quite a bit of deliberation that we might move, as we are paying a lot for rent and decided that we needed to save more money. However we have worked out a deal with our flat mates where we will switch rooms and taking the smaller one, pay about £200 a month less. So that settled, we are staying put for now at least.

My first term at LSE has finally come to a close, and I am now technically on my Christmas break, however I have several term papers to write over the vacation so not really. I really enjoyed my classes this fall and had the opportunity to meet some cool people, so in short I would say it has been a success. Though everything has been very interesting, my favorite class has been Arabic. I have now learned to read and write and to speak just a little bit. Over the rest of the year I will be learning the grammar, vocabulary and how to speak it really. I have always enjoyed learning languages and Arabic in particular is a really beautiful and interesting one. Even in the most mundane things it is incredibly poetic. Whether I will ever get to make use of it I have no idea but I am grateful to have had the opportunity to learn it and expand my horizons nonetheless.

Ryan is settling in really well at work. Unlike his last job in Edinburgh, the cycle shop is really his element and all the people he works with are genuinely his kind of crowd. We are taking advantage of his staff discount and investing in some new road bikes and gear, which will be really nice for our big UK tour this summer. His company seems to treat its employees pretty well. This last week they had a big Christmas party on a boat that sailed up and down the Thames. At the raffle Ryan even won a new i-pod nano! (which, since he already has a 30G i-pod video, I have commandeered).

Other than that, I am getting in shape again. I entered the lottery for a place in the London Marathon, but unfortunately did not get a place. Now I am looking at running instead at the Isle of Wight Marathon, or the Shakespeare Marathon (in Statford-upon-Avon, of course). I am working on organizing a whole group of Marshall Scholars who will run together, raising money for charity.

In the meantime, I have signed up for a sort of race this January with some of the other Marshalls, called Tough Guy, which basically involves a 6 mile cross country run and then a long series of crazy obstacles. http://www.toughguy.co.uk/ The whole point of the race is to be as uncomfortable as humanly possible. (Some of the obstacles, for example include swimming through icy muddy bogs, running through fire, crawling through nettles and climbing over rough walls). It is basically a test of mental endurance. The point of the competition is not to be the fastest, but just to finish and have a good time. The only reward is the glory. To get ready I am going rock climbing once a week, running 2-3 times a week (5-8 miles) and doing some weight lifting once a week at the university gym. All the guys I am doing it with are in the military, which gives them all a big advantage. Hopefully a couple of them will hang behind and keep me company! So far we haven't decided on a team theme (the tradition is to dress up in crazy matching costumes). The idea has been floated that we could dress up like characters from the movie Grease, though I am feeling a bit skeptical about doing it in a poodle skirt and sweater set.




Thats one tough chick. We'll see if after a couple months of hard training I look that burly.


Finally, for Christmas this year, we are spending the holiday here in London most likely. We were going to visit our friends Eden and David in Scotland, but decided to save the money (rail fares were incredibly expensive). We might visit some friends for dinner Christmas day, however since no trains run on the 25th and 26th, that might not work. Oh well. It might be nice to have a quiet dinner at the flat maybe even invite people to our place.

In any case, we hope you all have an excellent holiday.
We miss you all so much!
Love, Alletta and Ryan