Christmas Day

Today is Christmas! Yay! We didn't do very much today, just hung out. We woke up and opened up presents, but that's pretty obvious. At 1:00PM we had our Christmas dinner. Christmas dinner is basically a big lunch. We had turkey and roast potatoes, brussel sprouts, peas, sage and onion stuffing, yorkshire pudding, mince pie, lemon meringue  and raspberry chocolate gateaux. Raspberry chocolate gateaux is a chocolate cake with creamy filling and raspberries and top. After Christmas dinner my mom, dad and I took our aunt's dogs, Angel and Freddie, for a walk. It was a beautiful snowy day. It's not normally sunny in England, but today it was! The snow was perfect and fluffy and white instead of the normal black polluted snow. We went up a little trail that lead into a big hill. There were cows and everything seemed fresh and new.

This was definitely the best Christmas I've ever had. It was great being able to spend time with my family. My cousin's boyfriend, Jay, came by to see us and wish us a merry Christmas. It was great being able to relax and just hang out. Everybody seemed very happy and we are all over the jet lag. England is an amazing place and I love being with my family.

St. Alban's Church

Today we went to see St. Alban's Church. First we went to Verulamium where we saw the Roman walls that used to go around the city. Verulamium was a Roman city that existed before the town of St. Alban's. After the rise of Christianity St. Alban's became the bigger town. We explored the town and walked around the park. It was snowy day and people were ice skating on frozen pond and sledding on all the little hills. We then went to St. Alban's Church. They were actually having a service there since it was Christmas Eve! It was the "crib service" which is a service especially for children. The church was huge with beautiful and amazing architecture. It got its name because of St. Alban. He was the first English Christian to be executed for his religion. St. Alban's church was built in 1100. That is a very old church! There was a little museum set up that gave information on some of the Kings and Queens that were buried there and how it was built.

After that we went to the City of St. Alban. As you walked the walked the streets of the city you saw and heard and smelled just about everything. On the side of the street there were people selling selling fish heads and buttons and hats and jewellery and scarves and teddy bears and little toys and anything else you could think of. They had fish and chip restaurants, chocolate stores, candy stores, bakery's and so many others! All the stores smelled amazing. Especially the pastys. Pastys are sausages or chicken pot pie or beef stew wrapped in a pie like crust. They are amazing! The city had small houses that were just like the ones you would see in a stereotypical old village. There were people bustling around the streets and carolling and everybody was very friendly. The city really was fascinating and fun and interesting. Tomorrow is Christmas so I guess we'll just be hanging out!