A Trip Through The Tower To Finish It Off...

Well, now for the final act in the string of Christmas holiday blog posts that seemingly never end and take me until almost a month to finish. Sorry about that, I’ll do one big catch-up blog post about what I’ve been up to since the holidays ended. To be honest, my days at Cheam have been flying by without too much event. This is very nice however it doesn’t present much of a writing opportunity for me. Either way, we’ll get into all of that later as I’m getting ahead of myself.

Once the New Year’s celebrations were over and we all recovered from the night before, Jer only had a couple of days left in London. We spent a good chunk of the time walking and seeing a lot of the sights in the city itself that we hadn’t hit yet plus we went on a couple more London walks to occupy our time and see a lot of the city in one fell swoop. The last major sight we wanted to hit, that Jeremy hadn’t seen in his previous trip to London, was the Tower of London. Going to see the Tower itself can take a good three hours total (that’s what the ticket people say is a sufficient amount of time) but we didn’t necessarily want to see every little nook and cranny in the place, just the really important and famous bits. So, naturally we opted for the London Walks tour of the Tower with admission included in the cost (at a cheaper rate too). We met up with the rest of the group (mostly Americans as per usual) and headed over to the Tower with a guide who had some serious historical knowledge.

We received a heads up on different sights we were passing on our way down to the Tower itself including the original site where public executions would take place (you would only be executed in the Tower if you were royalty or upper class). It seemed like an unnecessary amount of time spent outside of the Tower talking about what was inside before we finally went through the gates. Our guide was extremely knowledgeable but also rambled….a lot. So we ended up standing around for long periods of time while he discussed things that didn’t have any relevance to what we were visiting. We did however eventually make it inside.

I was actually surprised by the look inside. I knew that the original tower was the White Tower and everything else was slowly built around it over the years but I was unaware of the village feel it had. Different rows of housing as well as buildings all around the edge, different towers here and there all conveniently placard with name plates. There were also a lot of different exhibitions going on throughout the Tower including one on medieval torture devices and one displaying famous suits of armour of English Kings past. With our tour we spent the time outside of all of the areas while our guide talked about them all. Which was fine but we had arrived so late in the day that by the time the tour was over we only had just under an hour before the place closed to wander around! Jeremy and I bee-lined for the Crown Jewels exhibition first to make sure we saw that.

I was highly impressed by this…I mean, how couldn’t you? The amounts of gold, diamonds, and other jewels is just mind boggling and knowing that it is sitting right there in a rather heavily guarded and reinforced case is very other-worldly. I had no idea there were so many individual pieces for the Coronation ceremonies (all with very “World of Warcraft names….the “Spirited Sword of Giving” or something like that ha ha ha…+45 healing….I love everybody who understands this.) Even the Royal Spoon with which the new monarch is anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. All very pomp and regal, including a vast array of gifts collected by monarchs through the years on their coronation days including many a solid gold plate and even a GIANT punch bowl capable of holding around 144 bottles of wine. Complete with a ridiculous ladle that looks like it would take 3 servants and a ladder to use. My particular favourite was the Imperial Crown of India made especially for King George V upon his one and only visit to India in which he needed a crown as Emperor. The English crown jewels cannot be taken out of the country so a different crown had to be made and it looks fantastic. Unfortunately the only comment old Georgie had for it was that it was heavy and it made his head hurt…oh, to be royalty.

Once we had gone through the Crown Jewels exhibition we made our way extremely quickly through the suit of armour exhibition and then out of the Tower. A lovely trip in which we received quite a lot of interesting and somewhat unnecessary facts but I would definitely want to go back at some point to truly finish exploring this wonder in the heart of the city.

My god….that pretty much sums up the entire holidays….WOOOOOO!!!! Now I can bore you all with mundane teaching life!!!!! Nah, I’ll jazz it up a bit. You’ve all been so patient and good that you deserve to be entertained…let them eat cake! At least…I assume there are people reading this….hello?

Until next time kids,

Same Erik time…same Erik channel

Cheers and love!

Erik

A Very Happy New Year...

I know, it’s taken me a while to finally rangle in this next blog post, eventually I will catch up to what’s been going on since the holiday break. I promise…cross my heart. Cool? Good, moving on!

So, New Years…….where to begin. Well, December 31^st would probably be the most sensible starting point. I had been thinking a lot prior to New Years as to exactly what we should do in the lead up to the midnight celebration. I definitely wanted to make it into London to see the fireworks that explode over and around the London Eye at midnight (you know, the ones you always see on TV when they broadcast the fact that it’s New Years in England). The only issue was that it was going to be crazy busy and we would need to get there early in order to ensure a decent vantage point at Victoria Embankment. Therefore, I felt that a good wander all through London to places that Jer hadn’t been to yet would be a good way to spend the day.

We woke up on the big day and ate a hearty breakfast (get something in the old gut for the celebrations to come) and loaded up a backpack with a few beers each to bring along with us throughout the day. We hit the tube up to Embankment station and this is where our story begins. From the station exit we headed south along Victoria Embankment towards Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. From there we swung south-west to Westminster Abbey for a photo-op in front of the beautiful building and continued on north towards St. James Park. Although it wasn’t as nice a day as the last time I was in this park (September) there was still a hustle and bustle of people everywhere and of course the plethora of ducks, geese, seagulls, squirrels, pelicans, and the like. Unfortunately we had a run in with a duck that was sporting a badly injured leg that forced it to hobble around. Definite damper on the moment but it eventually flew off and so did we.

Once hitting the north point of St. James Park we were on the Mall and headed west towards Buckingham Palace. After wishing the Queen a “Happy New Years” (or at least I assume she heard it) we had a sit down on the Victoria Monument and enjoyed a nice (and discreet) beer. From here we pressed onwards to Green Park on the north side of the Palace. In this park we stumbled upon a memorial to the Canadian war dead from the First and Second World Wars. I had no idea this memorial was even here and it was a lovely discovery for both of us. The memorial was split into two pieces of slanted bronze with maple leaves sculpted into them. Water cascaded down each one as well. After cleaning up a bunch of garbage that was just thrown around the memorial we pressed ahead towards Marble Arch and Hyde Park.

At this point the stomach was beginning to inform us of its desire to ingest something other than beer for a little bit. We obliged it tenfold by heading towards Harrod’s and it’s famed Food Hall. You can almost get anything you want in the hall so we were presented with many different options. We decided to get a spread of a couple cheese, some meats, and fresh baked bread to take with us (picture on my Facebook page). After wandering around the store a bit to show Jeremy how absolutely ridiculous it was we headed out of the weeds and into Hyde Park for a sit down and to enjoy our newly acquired sustenance. While we were eating we noticed that Hyde Park Winter Wonderland was still going on and decided to drop into the German Beer Haus for a stein of beer each to enjoy before moving forward. Luckily they were plastic and only a £2 deposit on them so we obviously took them with us. They were to come in handy later on. After completing our steins we headed east out of Hyde Park to make our way back towards Trafalgar Square to meet up with Nicole and friends. Along the way we headed through Mayfair and played another rousing game of “PUB!”….of which I believe I am still the undisputed champion but Jeremy more than held his own. We rounded our way through Picadilly Circus and down Haymarket back towards Trafalgar Square. While waiting on the steps of the National Gallery we enjoyed another beer (using our newly acquired steins) until everybody arrived. Once we were all together we slipped up to Leicester Square for Noodle Stop and over to The Brewmaster for another pint. Once we were done there we headed on our descent to Victoria Embankment (full circle anyone?) to wait for the fireworks. A quick stop off for champagne along the way and we rolled into the area at around 9pm.

Now, wasting three hours actually wasn’t as difficult as it sounded. Luckily they had a radio station playing music and we had a crazy dance party in the middle of the embankment to ourselves with people looking on and probably wondering how long we’d been drinking for. Long story short the time actually went by fairly quickly and as we counted down to midnight I prepped the champagne and popped the cork as the fireworks began flying through the air. It was actually an absolutely amazing moment to be there. You can kind of get the feel through the pictures on Facebook but it’s hard to really describe how amazing it was knowing where I was in the world and to with the people I was with…it was really special. After a quick phone call home to talk to my parents we began the long and arduous journey of getting back to Colliers Wood. Luckily the city was smart enough to keep the tube running until 4am and thereby moving people a lot quicker than could be possible. It actually wasn’t as bad or long as I thought (albeit one moment in which we lost Jeremy) and we walked through our front door at approximately 2am completely knackered and ready for bed.

All in all it was an epically epic day and I was very pleased. Although I didn’t really the chance to say it before, I just want to thank everyone for making last year one of the best ever. I met so many new people, got to participate in lots of theatre, completed my education degree (and university in general) worked about 4 different part time jobs, and said good-bye to come here and continue on my journey. I can’t wait to eventually celebrate the dawn of a new year with everyone back home. Until then…

Cheers and tons of love,

Erik

Teachers outside of teaching...

I got the inspiration to write this post while I was walking to the train station from the secondary school I’m currently working at. I began thinking about just how important it is for teachers to be constantly aware of whom they are and how they behave outside of the classroom and outside of the school. Not only this but how this would be perceived and interpreted by students and their parents. Now, I know that this is something we as teachers are reminded of time and again, not only through our teacher training but once we begin employment as well. There are many stories that are trickled through the press about teachers being sacked for indecent photos being found on Facebook and I know many fellow teachers who changed their whole names on the social networking site just to make sure that students would not be able to search and find them regardless of the content of their profiles. It’s a fact that remains with us throughout our entire careers: as teachers our jobs follow us wherever we go. Our profession is not like a lot of others who leave their job title behind when they leave the office at the end of the day. We are teachers during the school hours yes, but we are also teachers when we walk out of the school, when we’re at home, when we’re shopping for groceries, and so much more. If somebody recognizes us out in public they remember how they know us and immediately (whether they want to or not) will make judgments on our suitability to manage and teach children based on how we carry ourselves outside of working hours.

I’m not saying that we need to be paranoid that there will constantly be a set of eyes watching us at all times, but I think it is always important to make sound judgments when it comes to activities outside of school. In a bigger city like London it is easy to get lost in the crowd of people and you may never bump into people you know from work (teachers, students, or parents) because you may not live very near to the school. When you look at a lot of cities and towns however as the populations become smaller it becomes more and more common that people will recognize you wherever you go.

I know this all sounds a bit preachy but let me enlighten how this came to enter my head. I had just finished the last class of the day which was a Year 7 Life lesson. We were covering road safety in this particular class and spent time reviewing different road signs and how to recognize them, as well as discussing safe practices for walking, cycling, driving, and taking the bus to and from school. I spent the class leading the discussion and contributing extra information for my students about why certain choices make for safer journeys than others. Once I was leaving the school I was in a bit of a hurry (to make sure I caught the previously mentioned train) and when crossing a main four lane roadway near the school I saw an opening in the traffic and bolted across the road without pressing the crossing signal and waiting for the lights to change. When I got to the other side I quickly realized the hypocrisy in my ways. I had literally just lectured my students about safely crossing the roadways (including using the crossing signals) and here I was having directly contradicted that. There weren’t any students around at this point but if one of the kids from that class had seen me I’m sure they would have giving me quite the talking to about it later in the week (in a “caught ya!” type of way).

Although this is a very mild example it still got me thinking a lot about the implications of practicing what we teach in the schools. As a teacher I’m committed to making sure I project the same image and compose myself the same way in and out of the classroom. Although I obviously can’t tell anybody else how to behave (we are adults after all) I would still highly encourage everyone to do the same.

Cheers!

Erik

Skating and Greenwich!

Well, after a full day of recovery following the trip to Neale and Helen’s house (which may or may not have been followed up with beer pong during the Canada-Russia World Junior opening game) we decided to make a trip into the city and to meet my friend Laura for some skating later in the evening on the Tuesday (the 28^th). As I mentioned before, skating in London is actually hilarious. I’m not amazing by any standard, and if I was back home I would be horrendous compared to most other people, but here I look like some kind of a super star; this is especially true when doing a cross-over which Brits just cannot fathom. I also wore my Canada Olympic mitts that I received from my parents for Christmas, which of course didn’t add any pressure to perform well at all. I was actually pleased with how well I did, considering it was only my second time out this year. There was also an unfortunate misty rain occurring at the same time so I had to squeegee my glasses a couple of times to see properly. Though, this did lead to slightly funny spills by Brits falling into a puddle on the ice and getting soaked…I’m a bad person.

Following our skating trip we decided a true trip was in order and settled on Greenwich as our destination. This was a place that I was really interested in going to since I got here but I just never found the excuse to make the trek over. Luckily London Walks does walking tours of Greenwich a couple of times a week so Jer and I got ourselves mixed up into one of those tours and was it ever worth it. The payment included the tour as well as the price of the boat ride down the Thames towards Greenwich. It was a rather rainy, gloomy, and cold day out (becoming more and more common but very London-like in recent days) so the boat trip was not particularly enjoyable. Once we reached the other side however the history of this beautiful area of London began to unravel at our feet. We began at the Cutty Sark, a very famous British tea ship from the 19^th century that was extremely fast. Unfortunately it was under restoration until 2012 (for some reason everything in the city is under some kind of restoration or renovation until 2012 specifically…is there something going on?) We headed from here into the main high street area which is full of beautiful old London architecture and lots of churches. It has a very small town feel to it even though it is directly connected to and considered a borough of London. It’s far enough out and is full of lots of green space though so you do not feel as if you are in London at all. We wandered through the town streets and through the Greenwich Market where vendors are flogging anything from books to coins, medals, housewares, and albums. We eventually made our way up to the more historic aspects of Greenwich beginning with Greenwich Common. This common is a giant green space that literally made me awe as I stood and looked at it. There were rolling hills in every direction and tree lined paths that looked as if they belonged confined to a frame on the wall of a home. Everything invariably led upwards to the Royal Observatory at the top of the highest hill in the common, more on this in a bit. We made our way around the old Royal Naval Academy (which then became a Naval pensioners hospital before coming to its current existence as part of Greenwich University), past The Trafalgar Tavern which serves its famous Whitebait Dinners enjoyed in the past by Prime Ministers such as Gladstone and famous Londoners such as Dickens. We ended the guided part of the tour right in front of the Welcome Centre beside a statue of Sir Walter Raleigh before being let loose to explore on our own.

Jeremy and I headed directly back to The Trafalgar Tavern for a photo op with the statue of Admiral Horatio Nelson himself before tucking into an ale and the Whitebait dinner. Now, Whitebait are tiny little fish that are native to the Thames and they just fry the suckers whole and serve up a pile of them on a plate with a small salad. They were actually absolutely delicious and come with a really good paprika mayo to dip them in. Although extremely filling it is definitely something I would like to try again at some point. 

Once lunch was finished we made our way up the hills to work off the Whitebait and arrive at the Royal Observatory. I had already learned a lot about the observatory through a book I got in the Times one Saturday a little while back. The book, entitled “Longitude”, was about the race to find longitude so that ships could track their position more effectively. The book discusses the many parts of the observatory, the clocks of James Harrison (who eventually solved the longitude problem), as well as the red ball that drops from the top of the building (New Year’s Eve style) to mark 1:00pm GMT. This was a way for everyone in London to be able to either set their watches appropriately or know the time if they could not afford a watch. To be able to see all of these things was really cool after reading so much about them and visualizing what they looked like. The other obvious part of the observatory is the Prime Meridian. The point that marks where longitude begins, east meets west, and what determines our time zones. It was truly bizarre to be literally standing on the opposite side of the world as Jeremy for a moment and also to be standing on both sides of the world at the same time. It’s really corny and touristy but you couldn’t help but get caught up in the excitement of something so bizarre. We had a quick photo op at the Meridian (the queue was HUGE) and made our way back down to the Naval Museum. There were some interesting collections here but I’m not too interested in a lot of marine based history. They hold the actual uniform that Nelson was shot in, blood stains and all still visible, but it was out of the museum for restoration to be returned in…..you guessed it..2012! It began to get dark at this point and so we packed it in and headed back to Colliers Wood.

Greenwich was a really beautiful area and I really want to visit it again at some point in the Spring or Summer when it’s nicer weather (hopefully on a bright, sunny day) to enjoy the hustle and bustle of it all. We also missed out on a couple of areas to go in and view so I’d like to hit those as well…it gives me a great excuse to return that’s for sure!

Next up: a couple days off but culminating in New Years in London!

Until then…

Cheers and love,

Erik

Boxing Day Silver Lining...

Well, continuing from our previous story Christmas was over and we were all snuggled in for another long winter’s nap. But, was it to be? No. Why you ask?....geez, you ask a lot of questions! Well for your information Jeremy and I had a certain thing called a Crystal Palace football match to go to!! Kick-off was scheduled for 1:00pm on Boxing Day so we had to make sure we got going fairly early as we needed to take a couple of buses. Crystal Palace plays in Croydon which is almost directly east of Colliers Wood…therefore no tube line connection. No problem though; we breakfasted up, geared up, and headed out towards our destination.

To be honest, the whole getting there part was not very exciting. It was a bus ride through urban south London…wooooooo..you didn’t miss much. Just finding the first bus stop proved to be a bit of a problem however and we ended up being severely behind in terms of schedule but still on our way to making kick-off. I was hoping to meet up with a friend, Richard. Now, Richard is a consultant at Protocol and also happens to be a Crystal Palace fan. He did my original induction at Protocol when I first arrived and our conversation inevitably came to football (I seem to do that to people here) and he mentioned he was a Palace fan. When I bought the tickets I was headed to a secondary team drinks night in the city with the secondary consultants. When I saw Richard I mentioned I had bought tickets and he gave me his number so we could all link up before the match for pints at his usual pub. He’s a season ticket holder see, so he has the same pub that he and his mates go to before every match and it is big Palace territory. He told me we’d have a “true south London football experience”…which I admit was both awesome and seriously frightening. Either way, I was excited.

Okay, now that the big lead-up is complete you’re probably wondering how amazing the game was. Well…it wasn’t. Not that it wasn’t a good game, just that there was no game period. I have no learned the lesson to always check online before leaving on a two bus journey to a different borough to make sure the game hasn’t been postponed. We arrived in Selhurst and on our walk towards the grounds I mentioned to Jeremy that it was eerily quiet. No roar of fans from the stands in Selhurst Park, no people coming out of pubs…nothing but dead silence. I knew this wasn’t good. We arrived up at the grounds and everything was closed off and not a soul in sight. We eventually ran into a couple of guys who were checking the grounds out and managed to catch a peek of the pitch covered up, meaning the game was definitely off for the day. Extremely pissed at this point we decided to walk around to find a pub and figure out exactly what had happened. Of course, I have no idea where pubs are in this area so we just started walking towards a train station…there’s always pubs near train stations. Sure enough we discovered one and it actually happened to be the one Richard was going to meet us at. Of course it was not nearly as busy as it could have been but the bartender was nice enough to let us know that the pitch was frozen over at Selhurst and the game had been postponed. Jer and I decided to console ourselves in a pint of Guinness each before heading out. The pub was small but seriously decked out in Palace and England flags and memorabilia…it would have been an amazing atmosphere to be in should the game have been on. We grabbed some food and headed back on the bus journey to Collier’s Wood.

There was however a silver lining to our grand day out. Neale and his wife Helen had invited the both of us over for a Boxing Day dinner at their place over in Wandsworth, which is about a half hour walk from my flat. We got back to Collier’s Wood, showered, changed, and headed out to an Off Licence to pick up a bottle of wine and some beers to bring along as a gift for inviting us into their home and made the walk over. When we arrived Neale invited us right in and immediately you could feel the hominess of this flat. There were trinkets, souvenirs, and photos everywhere (Neale and Helen are avid travelers and go all over the world whenever they can) and the hospitality that they both give was fantastic.  Dinner was still simmering away so we all had a drink and caught up on how the holidays had been going, plus they asked Jeremy a lot of questions about what he was doing in Belfast and his studies there. Once dinner was ready we saddled up for the dining room and enjoyed a nice hors d’oeurvre  of smoked salmon. Before dinner was ready for the table though, Neale ended up leaving the room and coming back in with a Christmas gift he had gotten me. Of course, I was not expecting this whatsoever. It was enough that they had invited myself and a friend into their home for a dinner but there was no need for a gift of any kind. Once I opened it I was so taken aback and could not believe my eyes. Before I say what he gave me, let me tell you a quick story…

Back in November I had gone to one of the Chelsea Champions League matches with Neale and his step-son Stefan. The match was against a league team from Slovakia called MSK Zilina. Neale had the coincidental opportunity to pick up the owner of this team at the airport a week prior to the match. He gave the owner his card and told him to give him a ring after wards when he was to fly out. Needless to say the owner does and before he gets out of the car Neale hands him the program that he bought at the match and asked if he might be able to get a couple of the players to sign it for him. The owner happily obliged and took Neale’s address so he could send it back. A couple of weeks later the program came back through the post and the owner had the entire team sign it on their profiles page! A wonderful move by this owner and a nice keepsake for Neale.

I’m sure at this point you can probably guess where I’m heading with this story. Neale had given me this signed program for Christmas. I didn’t even know what to say…this is an item to treasure and I couldn’t believe he’d part with it. He told me that he knew I’d like it and that’s why he gifted it. I will definitely treasure this program for the rest of my life.

Afterwards we tucked into a wonderful dinner of rooster (yeah, rooster!...tasted like chicken), potatoes, brussel sprouts, carrots and beans, stuffing, pigs in a blanket, and turnip. It was absolutely delicious and we were well stuffed once we were done. After dinner the conversation and the wine flowed quite well. About five bottles in total were opened between the four of us and in the middle of this Helen revealed that she was quite the scotch fan as well. She was really excited when Jer and I told her that we were quite partial to the stuff as well and bottles of scotch were broken out too. We had to try this kind and that kind and she kept filling both our scotch and wine for quite sometime, like they were never empty! All the while we were having wonderful conversation and watching highlights from The Ashes. Now, The Ashes are a biannual cricket competition between England and Australia. Neither Jeremy nor I know anything about cricket but as we were watching the highlights Neale graciously explained how the game works. I think I have a good grasp on it but not entirely. What I do understand is that a day’s match for a test lasts literally all day and spectators will go with a picnic basket full of food and drink. They’ll eat well and drink all day…sounds like my kind of a sport ha ha ha. Once it got a little late we said our good-byes, thanked them for their hospitality, and headed back our way home.

Even though the day didn’t begin the way I was hoping, it ended on quite an amazing note. I don’t know who was looking down on me to bring such amazing people into my life and being in their home and having the time we did made me feel a little less homesick for that kind of an atmosphere. We had a great time and I am truly thankful for that.

Next up: skating in London and a trip to Greenwich!

Until then…

Cheers and love!

Erik

Turkey? Stuffing? Beer Pong? It must be Christmas!

Well, we left off our on holiday hi-jinx tale Christmas Eve had passed and we were all settled down for a long winters nap. Considering we went to sleep around 2:30 in the morning it technically wasn’t a very long nap at all. But, there were things to be done so up I got and downstairs I went. I had already prepped the bird and the first part of the stuffing the night before so that was sitting on the counter doing its thing irresistibly awaiting their time in the inferno. Until then, breakfast had to happen. Since Nate and Meg could not make it home for Christmas this year I told them that my gift to them for this year would be cooking all of the meals. They could just relax and try to enjoy the day as best they could so they didn’t feel too homesick. For breakfast we had a feast of eggs, bacon, toast, and mimosas. Now, many of you might be thinking that the mimosa part of the breakfast sticks out like a cramped toe. This tradition started in my family only a few years ago (obviously since the three of us were legal) when Dusty decided to do it…not too sure why but we went with it. Now it’s just become a normal aspect of Christmas morning for us, so I shared that with everyone else and they didn’t seem to mind at all.

Once breakfast was completed we cleaned up the dishes and decided to tackle the presents that were under the tree. Meg and Nate exchanged presents as well as Jeremy and me. I gave Jeremy (and myself) a ticket to the Crystal Palace-Norwich City match the next day at Selhurst Park. In return a received a lovely bottle of Bushmills Black Bush, a delicious sherry cask matured Irish whiskey that was designed as a digestif. Afterwards I also opened the gifts that had been sent to me from back home. My parents sent me the usual stocking stuffers: toiletries, Lifesavers, my coin set, a Starbucks gift card, and the new Canada mitts from The Bay! Aunt Rhonda also sent me a new journal which I can’t wait to start generating pen strokes on, and a very smart tie that I can be seen wearing in the pictures from the day on my Facebook profile. Overall, a great success!

From that point it was just a lot of lounging around and enjoying each other’s company. I managed to squeeze in a Skype conversation with my family later on in the afternoon so that I could see them open the presents that I sent them. Everything arrived in Sarnia safe and sound which was a relief and everyone seemed to love the gifts I sent them! In a strange “Smith” family moment I had packaged Dusty’s gift in a box that once contained a Fuller’s Vintage Ale from this year (they brew a different vintage ale every year). The ale itself was delicious but Dusty thought that the bottle of beer was the gift when he first opened it, not realizing that I had written “Maybe NOT what’s inside…” on the front. When he opened it there was an Arsenal tie inside that I had picked up from The Armoury. However, the twist comes when Dusty got up to give a gift to Scott and my Dad as well as himself. All of the gifts were a Fuller’s Vintage Ale!! The actual beer was inside of these boxes however, so everything worked out in the end and Dusty got his Fuller’s. Just thought I’d share that bizarre moment. Though, I can’t help but notice a lack of a Fuller’s Vintage Ale here…

Soon it became time to start getting the turkey ready to go. Now, I was obviously only preparing turkey for 7 people that evening, which is why I had such a small turkey!! Some people’s comments on the picture of it…geez. I admit it was a puny little guy but I was going to roast the shit out of it regardless. Luckily the sucker was gutted already so I just needed to run it under some cold water and pat dry. After applying butter to crisp up the skin I threw some salt, pepper, and rosemary on it and rubbed all of the spices in. I also decided to shove a bunch of dried thyme under the skin to help the flavours get down into the meat. I finished it off by brushing some olive oil on the skin to lock in the butter and onto a roasting pan it went. To accompany it I made a batch of my Mum’s world famous holiday stuffing of which the method and ingredients I cannot share with you. I wrapped up the stuffing in foil and placed it beside the turkey. Once those were in I roughly cut up a couple carrots, an onion, and a few cloves of garlic and put them into the pan to roast and fill the pan with their flavours. I covered the whole pan with foil and plopped them into the oven. I know what you’re thinking right now…and no, I didn’t teach Michael Smith how to cook but I do know that I’m awesome. Actually, I had a LOT of help from Google and YouTube to figure out cooking methods and times and was shitting myself the entire time hoping I didn’t botch it and give everyone food poisoning or transform the turkey into a blackbird. Luckily this was not the case.

Nate decided to roast up a small ham as well for dinner and Jeremy made up a spinach and ricotta salad with Fusili. Once those were completed we sat around a bit more and enjoyed a couple of drinks before our guests arrived. As I said before, Megan, Laura, and Jodi were invited over to dinner because they were also remaining in London for Christmas as opposed to returning to the motherland. They were kind enough to bring a couple of side dishes as well as wine to include in the dinner. We got an appetizer table of cheese, crackers, nachos, and dip going while everything was finishing up in the kitchen. Starting to feel like the rabbit from Alice in Wonderland I continuously looked at the time until finally it was the moment of truth. I pulled that bird out of the oven; the heavens opened up, light shone down, angels played trumpets, and God yelled “BOO-YA!”. It was perfect, cooked all of the way through but still very juicy and the skin crisp though not the brown colour I was hoping for. Either way, I was now faced with the task of carving a turkey (again, something I hadn’t done before). With more help from YouTube and Food Network I carved a mean turkey and gave it the Sweeny Todd treatment…I felt manly. After checking the stuffing (another nervous moment because I wanted it to taste like my Mum’s so bad) all was well and we plated and served everything up. After saying Grace we dug into our feast (photos available on Facebook) and all was well. Every bite of the stuffing I took made me miss home so much, it really is a taste that I had only ever previously had when I was home for the holidays. But, I made due and had a lot of friends to enjoy this day with which made it okay to be here.

Once dinner was completed and the clean-up effort was manned and womanned by all we sat down for a couple of fun games and some mulled wine. Rounding the night off with some Christmas beer pong (new tradition?) everyone headed their separate ways. Jer, Nate, and I stayed up for a bit later before finally calling it a highly successful day. I missed friends and family so much on this day but I was surrounded by people, was able to cook an awesome meal that I was very proud of, and really tried to make it feel like a Christmas at home even though it was miles away. Plus, Skype closed the gap a lot too. I hope everyone was able to have as wonderful a Christmas as well, hopefully soon I’ll be able to spend it with family and friends again.

Next up: Boxing Day attempt at a Crystal Palace game and dinner at Neale’s house

Until then…

Cheers and love,

Erik

Imminent Holiday Fun...

Well, I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything new on this blog…but hey, I’ve been busy! As a matter of fact, you should be happy that there’s nothing on here because that means I’ve been out and enjoying myself in this beautiful city. Then again, you’re also not reading about said mystical capers…and here we reach the conundrum. For realsies though, I’ve just been hella busy since the last week of term and just haven’t had the time or motivation to sit and write out everything that’s gone on. To be honest, it came to a point where I decided to just wait until this point and go on a writing tear getting everybody updated on what’s been happening here in London. Everything will NOT be posted in this single blog post alone…that would absolutely ridiculous. Why would you even think something like that? Geez. I’ll separate things out in chunks to make it much more reader friendly (you’re welcome). We begin with the end of term and the days leading up to Christmas.

When I left you I was eagerly anticipating the arrival of Jeremy from Belfast after two cancelled flights. Well, it was made three cancelled flights but not before a wonderful adventure to Heathrow. At the time, the flight was supposed to go ahead as scheduled so I made the hour and a half Tube journey to the airport only to be updated by text message from Jer that the flight was delayed. It was delayed…and delayed…and delayed, until finally they cancelled it altogether. After all of the waiting and feeling a little annoyed, I suggested to Jer that he book a flight for a couple of days later in order to avoid the big rush of people trying to get out as soon as possible. He heeded the advice and booked on a flight for the Wednesday and had the hotel set him up in a hotel room for the night. With this settled I figured I’d just relax around the house on Tuesday and get some errands completed, until I received a text from Jeremy telling me that he had just arrived at Heathrow...a day early. Needless I was confused but apparently he managed to get on an earlier flight last minute and didn’t want to tell me until he was actually standing in Heathrow to avoid jinxing it. It worked, he was here, and I went to pick him up and we headed back to the house. After dropping his stuff off he headed right into the city to meet up with Nate and Alex for beers at The Chandos in Trafalgar Square. This is another Samuel Smith owned pubs so they have a large selection of beers and ciders on tap at very cheap prices. We started buying rounds and it got a little messy but nothing serious. After working our way down to the house once more; Nate, Jer, and I decided that the best way to kick off the first full day would be to do a Dick Whittington Ale Trail…obviously.

After a decent lie-in the next morning, Jer and I headed over to Tesco’s to pick up breakfast essentials and enjoy a feast. I cooked up a sizeable amount of bacon, a bunch of eggs, and toast along with our freshly opened bottles of ale. Why not get started early right? Hey, it was the holidays!! After breakfast went down the gullet we gathered Nate and also managed to recruit my friends Megan, Laura, and Jodi to come along. These were the three friends who would be joining us for Christmas Dinner so it was a great opportunity for them to meet Jer and Nate beforehand, Meg was feeling really ill so she opted out of the pub crawl understandably. Our first stop on the trail was a pub on Whitehall called The Shades. Excited and ready to go we entered the pub full of aspiration. Unfortunately the pub was not full of people, though it was 1 o’clock on a Wednesday. It was however full of beer, so we won in the end! To our displeasure, upon ordering our pints of ale requesting a trail map we were told by the bartender that they did not participate in that anymore as they are no longer owned by Nicholson’s brewery. Huge blow to the start of the trip, but we had already ordered our pints so there was really nothing we could have done. Then another problem arose, without the map how would we know the location of the other pubs? Baffled and perplexed we did what any sane, normal Canadian would do in our situation…we decided to create our own ale trail! Hooray! After Megan, Laura, and Jodi met us at The Shades we headed to a Fuller’s pub just down Whitehall, then to The Westminster Arms in (you guessed it) Westminster. From there we went back to the West End to The Chandos and ended the night at The Brewmaster in Leicester Square. After getting in a bit of trouble for eating noodles in the bar (no food on the lower floor) we finished our pints and went our separate ways.

The next day being Christmas Eve we wanted to head back into the city and do a bunch of walking around while also gathering the last things I needed to cook dinner on Christmas Day. We started our day at Trafalgar Square as per usual and headed north. The plan was to make our way eventually to Covent Garden. After seeing a lot of the sites over the northern part of the central city we went through Holborn and an unlucky trip into a Sainsbury’s trying to find the last minute essentials. Apparently poultry seasoning does not exist in this country so I looked pretty stupid attempting to scour the spice aisle for it whilst asking employees who had no idea what I was talking about. After a quick conversation with my parents I was told sage would substitute perfectly and the mission was back on! We made our way to Covent Garden and I introduced Jer to The Maple Leaf pub which we stopped into for a drink before heading onwards. I really wanted to introduce Jeremy to my favourite pub (Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese) so we decided to head towards the old city next. Upon arriving we discovered it was closed (not weird for Christmas Eve) and instead enjoyed a pint in The Tipperary, which is apparently the oldest Irish pub in London. With one more pint in us we headed back to Charing Cross station to take the Tube back to Colliers Wood. Unfortunately With a last second trip to Sainsbury’s in Colliers Wood (15 min before it closed) we managed to fulfill the sage mission and also pick up 30 tall boys of Fosters for ₤18, awesome. Nate and Meg unfortunately could not get on a flight out before Christmas so we sat up and played some beer pong and listened to Christmas music until the wee hours of the morning. Of course our wakefulness was stopping Santa from crossing our house off of his list so we called it a night and headed off to bed.

For a full and detailed description of Christmas and Boxing Day….stay tuned!!

Until then,

Cheers and love

Erik