Christmas Time in the UK

This trip, I only intended to go to London (for the fifth time this year!)  (No random venturing to find the workplaces of my ancestors this time.) I booked my tickets months in advance for a great price and was excited that I would finally get to fly Icelandair! Right before the trip, I noticed that I somehow booked two Reykjavik to London flights, rather than a round trip ticket.  So I called Icelandair to fix it, but they wanted me to pay four times what I initially paid for the ticket.  So I took matters into my own hands and made an adventure out of it.  I enlisted a friend, booked a train ticket from London to Manchester, a hotel room, and an early morning EasyJet flight out of Manchester...all for $300 less than what re-booking my ticket would have cost!  Manchester is actually the Christmas capital of the UK (basically Whoville) but more on that later!

Just one of the entrances to Winter Wonderland

If you like Christmas lights as much as I do, add the UK to your Christmas destination list!  I actually lived in London in December 2014, but I think the Christmas cheer has only increased since.  Virtually everywhere in London, the streets are covered in lights.  Immediately upon my arrival, I met up with a friend to go to Winter Wonderland, London's largest and most famous Christmas market.

Winter Wonderland

I met Olaf from Frozen as well

Christmas in England has some differences to America.  For the last three years, I've brought Christmas crackers and mince pies to my American family.  My British friends are always surprised that Christmas crackers are not ubiquitous! For my non-British readers, Christmas crackers are like firecrackers and contain a little toy, a joke, and a paper hat.  During the English Christmastime, you'll see work parties and groups of friends wearing these paper hats at restaurants everywhere!  They're also used on Christmas Day.  

Our table this Christmas. Note the Christmas crackers.

If you really want to experience the English Christmastime, nothing can quite replace making English friends and tagging along for flat Christmas dinners!  I'm lucky enough that after a year living in London,  it feels like home and I have several friends still in the city.

After my time in London, we headed to Manchester (but not before missing our original train - luckily we were able to take one twenty minutes later with no charge!)  Our first stop was Takk, an Icelandic inspired coffee shop!  

Takk Coffee Shop

Manchester is home to several adorable bookstores, including Chapter One, an independent store.  Their Waterstones is massive and (despite telling myself I wasn't going to buy a book), I found a book with a fencer on the cover so of course I needed that.  (The Dutch Maiden by Marente de Moor.  It was a great read!)

Manchester Christmas market

Manchester prides itself as the Christmas capital of the UK.  The entire city is like one giant Christmas market! We somehow found time to ice skate (yay for rental skates).

The only times I've ever used rental skates have been on outdoor ice rinks in England

We had left our bags at the storage place at the train station.  Upon collection, the worker noticed that my hands looked cold and gave me a pair of really nice red leather gloves from lost and found.  If you lost your gloves in Manchester recently, I've been taking good care of them (though I almost lost them in a parking lot in Colorado, I found them again). 

Manchester city lights

And then, because I like to keep busy, I flew back to Reykjavik for my skaters' Christmas show and then flew back to the States (and drove across the country while I was at it!).