DAY 125: CHRISTMAS!!!

Back in November when I was planning our entire London trip, I had a brilliant idea.

I said to myself, "Self, wouldn't it be cool to go to Christmas Mass at Westminster Abbey?"

"Why yes self, it most certainly would."

So I started looking up how to make that happen. What I found in my research was that you can get tickets online for free, but you need to buy them on a certain date at a certain time in the morning.

My past 8 semesters of class selections at UVM had prepared me for this exact moment. I woke up early to make sure the wifi connection was working and refreshed the page over and over and over again until 7:00 AM hit. That is, until I realized the United Kingdom  is an hour behind Spanish time. Great.... So I stayed up for an extra hour. Finally I got them- with a little help from Lizzy.

We all dressed up a bit fancy and luckily had ordered a cab the night before. The streets were dead except for the long long line outside of the Abbey. It was about 35 degrees fahrenheit, so not too bad, but the sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. The line didn't take too long and we were able to sit in a great location. Unfortunately, our seats were outside of the main section of the Cathedral, but we still were able to hear everything perfectly. As it was Christmas of 2014, the priest did a great sermon to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the First World War's Christmas. Even at church, I learned something about British history. Gotta love it.

FUN FACT #84: The Westminster Abbey Choir School educates 30 boys between ages 8-13 to sing in the Abbey Choir.










The music was absolutely excellent. Although we were unable to see them, the voices of the boys and older men singing in Latin was beautiful. Following the service, we went outside to the main green to take photos in front of Big Ben. We continued to walk through London past the London Eye and many red phone booths back to our hotel. Joe Lizzy and I bought a few bottles of wine for the five of us and we ordered pizza to our hotel room for Christmas dinner. Not your typical Christmas, but it was nonetheless a very nice day