may all your Christmases be white

What I wouldn't give to be sitting in my parents' living room watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas (animated 1960s version only) with a bowl of homemade chex mix right now. It's not that I'm homesick or missing home particularly, it's just that it's Christmas time and this is the second year I've gone without the comforts of home. I have all my favorite Christmas TV shows downloaded onto my computer (Mickey's Christmas Carol, the Grinch, the Santa Clause, etc) but it's not quite the same. Maybe next year I'll finally be able to start Christmas traditions over again.

On Friday, I headed off to Brugge (aka Bruges/Bruge) in Belgium for the ice sculpture festival. It was cold and they made us change trains? I just followed the other French people who were changing trains and nothing particularly bad or interesting happened.

Brugge is a quaint little town about 2 hours from where I live by train, probably extremely touristy in the spring and summertime. But this is winter so it's appeal was brought down a little by the grey, murky clouds and nipping chill at your fingertips. But it was cute and with a little editing, my pictures look very nice.

The actual Ice Scuplture festival was interesting. The theme was "Around the World" which basically means that the sculpture were all of landmarks, for instance America had the statue of Liberty, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis. France had the Arc de Triumphe, etc. The sculptures themselves were really cool, but I wish it had been a different theme seeing as I've already seen a lot of those in real life - the arc, the great wall of china, xi'an terracotta warriors, Japanese temples, Big Ben, etc.

But! There was an ice slide. The Great Wall of China was made into an ice slide that you could slide down, and of course I had to do it, whether or not I would look like an idiot doing it alone. But hey, such is the life of a lonesome traveler. I've learned to deal with it, and I still don't understand why some people just won't travel alone.

Christmas break is coming up in less than a week and I have absolutely no plans aside from eating too much chocolate. I guess what they say about New Year's is exactly right: where you start, you will end. Last year I spent New Years Eve watching Pride & Prejudice with Jesse and Lucy and trying to figure out Chinese monopoly. I remember eating McDonalds after unsatisfactory "Coffee Bar" food. If you ever go to China, do not eat at "coffee bars." Food is much better in the random, hole-in-the-wall places, cheaper too. Of course, that New Years was made up by the fact that I went to Beijing the next week. Maybe I'll go to Athens in January... There's a flight special! ;] I'm having far too much fun today planning out Christmas videos to show one of my classes. I'm thinking Pluto's Christmas Tree and Animals Singing Deck the Halls. :]