What can I say, Christmas in Atlanta was a blast as always. Not matter how the year has been, there is nothing like going home and hanging out with the family, meeting up with some dear old friends, and simply enjoying life at a relaxed pace. As expected, the Christmas party was a blast and the turn out was fantastic just like every year. Here is one thing about the annual Christmas party that is totally unpredictable: drinking patterns. My parents have been hosting this party now for well over ten years, and even though many of the guests stay the same, the drinking patters change year to year. On some years it is wine that sees most of the consumption, on others it is beer, and yet now and then it is the hard liquor that really comes out - who knows, maybe one year we'll figure it out. My sister and I got our parents one gigantic LCD TV for Christmas, so of course we had to spent a lot of time afterward watching movies whatnot. Christmas time and overseas flights are probably the times at which I catch up with most of the movies I missed during the year, and why not! Anyhow, the picture quality on my parent's new TV is so stunning, it makes standard definition content look far superior to high-definition content on my old clunker. I suppose this shows how far technology has come over the last six years or so. Not that I'm asking for my old set to go kaput, but it shure would be nice to have a need for a new TV.
Unfortunately, I did not really get much time this year to relax in Atlanta, since my sister offered to pick up a ticket for me to cross to pond and visit her in London for New Years - can one pass up such an excellent offer? Absolutely Not. Since I had only a few days in London we pretty much went on a crash course in things to see every single day, with the exception of the day after New Years understandably. So here is a quick recap of all the places that we managed to hit up. First, the changing of the Buckingham palace guard is overrated. There are tons of people, and there really is not that much to see. My recommendation: skip it, especially on a rainy, cold, and foggy day. Big Ben and the Palace of Westminster are another story, and are definitely worth checking out, if only to take a few great pictures. The Tower Bridge is also fantastic and we even got lucky to see it in action. Ever since seeing the Tower Bridge as a background image in a tennis game that I used to play as a kid, I think it was called Great Courts or something like that, I wanted to see the bridge in real life. So finally, about 20 years later, I can finally put a check mark next to that. Regretfully, I did not have enough time to check out the Wimbledon tennis center and museum, but hey, one has to always leave something for next time. Moving right along, the Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery are also worth checking out. Leave yourself plenty of time for the National Gallery for this place is humongous. A nice thing about London is that most of the Museums and Galleries are free, with the exception of special exhibits, so feel free to knock yourself out on art and the like. In addition to the National Gallery we also managed to hit up the Tate Modern, which featured a very interesting exhibit by Miroslaw Balka, a polish artist, which explored the experiences of the dark and our fear of it - quite powerful and almost overwhelming at times. We also stopped off at the London Eye, a gigantic ferris wheel which reaches an amazing height of 135m, and is the tallest ferris wheel in Europe. However, with long lines and a cold, foggy and rainy day, we decided to skip this attraction this time around.
