Merry Christmas

Hello again, of course a happy Christmas to you all. We finally got going and we are now in the UK visiting Jo’s family and friends. It was a bit of a chore getting here last weekend with Eurostar’s inability to drive trough snow or something.

We supposed to have gotten on the Eurostar on Monday, but no dice. Nothing going or coming all weekend and Monday. So did the website say at least… Before we went to the train station we already booked a bus to get to London the next day since we still had to sort out Jo’s visa over there. We were on a tight schedule the first couple of days. OK, bus booked, no worries again. Drove to the train station to get some sweet compensation money. My beloved Fiesta decided to kick my ass by getting a flat tire on our last ride. Ahwell, having bad luck in the beginning of a trip means good luck for the rest of the journey. For me it does anyways.

So we got to Brussels South Station and all of a sudden they’ve been putting people on buses all day long to London. Great you would think, indeed if we had our luggage with us. But again, keep cool and good things will happen. We got to talk to this awesome Eurostar employee who got us a free hotel room for the night and told us to show up at 6am the next day so she would put us on the first train. Great. So we went and got our luggage, a few more goodbyes at home and couple more beers in the train station bar. Back to Brussels then…

Got up nice and early so we could drag out luggage full of xmas presents trough the melting black snow on our way to the Eurostar. There was just a small queue when we got there, but everybody who had a ticked for Monday (like us) or Tuesday got sent back and couldn't go for another couple of days. No way mate, just cancelled the bus we would’ve got on that day. Then all of a sudden, there she was, waving us over. The nice woman that got us a hotel. “Had a good night in the hotel?'’ she asked, while putting a sticker on our tickets for boarding. Fucking ace, really.

And by the way, we got interviewed by British TV when we came of the first Eurostar running again. “How long have you been delayed Sir?” He asked. Not too long, got free food, free hotel, things went actually really smooth. Thumbs up Eurostar. Not the answer they wanted I reckon.

So eventually got to London, we went over to Jo’s dad and then went to sort her visa out. We went out in London that night, to Winter WonderLand in Hyde Park. Had some shots and drank some mulled wine (gluhwein). Next day off to Bristol to see Sarah and Dan, who are giving us a lift down to Brixham. We didn't go out in Bristol, just chillaxin’ at their house, really good.

Christmas day, lots of presents and lots of food. Boxing Day, lots of bubble and squeek and lots of alcohol. Bubble and squeek are the leftovers of Christmas dinner all fried up together, nice! Seriously! It was another great couple of days here, really good seeing everybody again. Now we got a couple more days to go till New Year, I think we’re dressing up as robbers or something. Ben and Emma are driving us up to London on the 1st. Jo’s got her passport back today so we should be still flying out on the 2nd! Fingers crossed!