The loooooong overdue update...

Ciaaaao tutti!!!

Merry belated Christmas and Happy "belated" New Year!!!

Hope all is well with you and you had a great time with your family and friends during this Christmas season & New Year's!

What have I done you may ask...

I spent most of my winter holidays with my friend S. Truby and her family in Frinton-On-Sea, Essex, England.

It all started on Dec. 21 when I left Milan to catch my plane scheduled to depart at 22:05 from Bergamo. I arrived at around 2100 to find that the airport was in a chaotic state with overflowing passengers everywhere, check-in line, x-ray queue and to add to my desperation the passport cabin officer decided to disappear during the Christmas rush-hour... I was stressed out because nobody here knows what a line is... EVERYONE just pushes and crams and pretends to be in front of you totally ignoring your presence!!! Thus, I was afraid of missing my flight... After long waits and finally making to the gate, I found out that my flight was delayed for 1 hour... GREAT!!! Without Truby's number, I had to text Vina in Calgary to inform Truby in the UK that I was going to arrive late from Milan. After a few minutes, I had to text Vina again because the notice changed adding another hour to the delay which was due to the fog in the UK. At the end I waited for at least 2 hours which felt like forever because the floor was cold, kids screaming, people talking loudly, couldn't really fall asleep but too tired to read...

Finally, I arrived in Stanstead, UK in the early morning (1ish) and saw 2 friendly faces, Truby and Matt!! =D SOOO HAPPY!!! England was coooold compared to Milan!! We reached Frinton (3ish) after driving through the foggy roads of England and finally slept at 4ish.

I won't describe my day-to-day in Frinton to spare you from reading about me sleeping late and waking up really early 50x and how lazy I was..., but it was GREAT FUN times at the Truby's! I was definitely spoiled by Truby and my new family!!

I had:
- Truby's English breakfast and soldiers for breakfast
- Tried Scottish Eggs, crumpet, and all the traditional English things at Christmas

Matt took us for a day trip:
- Orford to see the castle,
- Snape to see Santa by ship (missed him tho), walked around an estuary: nice-scenery-water-front-muddy-trail location (tons of fun!), ate Jacket Potato with coronation chicken
- Dedham to see the Dedham Parish Church

Beaumont-Cum-Maze: to get our turkey with dad and got some explanation on mansard roof (http://architecture.about.com/library/blgloss-mansard.htm)

Bluewater: met up with Tara who kindly brought me some stuff from Calgary as well as some Christmas gifts from Vina and Curtis

Frinton-On-Sea: the beach, the garden, the 2 churches, the rock (? new public washroom by the beach), main avenue and around, saw Truby's painting for sale, Peacock store, Cricket Club

Walton-On-the-Naze: played at Walton Pier arcade, walked til the end of the pier, brought home real English Fish and Chips, played at the Naze Cliffs just to help with the erosion process (oops!) and got splashed by the North Sea waves

Colchester: met Lucy, went to Castle Park with nephew Jonathan and had tons of fun dressing up and taking pics

Kirby-Le-Soken: the Ship Inn, Hamford Water National Nature Reserve (the backwaters when low tide one can cross to the island by car or whatever means chosen if not stuck in the mud)

Clacton: Clacton Pier, beef liver pie, played at the arcade again

Met friends and lost family!

I went to many villages around Frinton throughout my stay. It was indeed a real English experience, just lovely!! =D Thanks to Truby for having me and everyone for making this such a memorable experience!!!

For New Year's Eve I went to London to see the fireworks. There were around 700,000 people everywhere!!! I haven't seen this many people since I left Brasil...!
It was beautiful seeing the colorful fireworks in the sky between the Big Ben and the London Eye, the chill in the spine when counting down to the new year and just thanking God for another year. =) I didn't want to party or anything after that, so walked around for a little bit in the Trafalgar Square area. It took me more than 2 hours to get in the tube station!! N-ways, it was a nice New Year's Eve experience!!

I stayed in London from Dec. 31 to Jan. 3 and left on the 4th to Oxford where I spent 1/2 day walking around and exploring as much as I could. The weather wasn't very nice, but I liked the feel there. The colleges were so nice that I would go back to school just to study there! HAHA

Came back to Milan on Jan. 6 after a pit-stop in Frinton and felt like running away... Not much motivation to teach anymore... hehe

K, I'm tired of writing and will post the pics shortly on my Picassa... stay tuned.

I will try to write more... even if something short or I'll never write... just can't help it, I like to tell as many details as possible...

N-ways, basta!! You probably fell asleep reading this entry...

Have a great week!!!