The Pond of Aliswan

Well, here is to the 6 or so month update.

Whoops.

I should preface this post with the reminder that I am writing a PhD thesis and some days I literally don't have time to bathe - though mouthwash and baby wipes are my friend.

I am currently trying to finish analysis and write my thesis before the end of September.

It is my full-time/over-time job.

I don't talk about it here because I have another blog for the thesis and double-posting is just ridiculous.

I do post there every other week though.

Just sayin'.

Let's see...last post, mid-October.

What have I done since then...?

What haven't I done since then?

There have been some adventures, some Thursday Take-offs (though limited due to the lack of sunlight and cold), and many walkabouts.

I generally post my Thursday Take-offs (unless seriously awesome) on Instagram.

If you really want to see those snippets of Thursday you can follow that here.

It is what it is guys.

I am just going to post little photo tasters.

At some later date (likely post-thesis) I will do throwback posts of these trips with all the awesome photos (after I have gone through my large back-ups to find them) and stories.

Not today though.

Not today.

November:

Two main takeaways for the month of November and they came in the middle to the end of the month.

1. Lumiere Festival

The festival itself was top-notch but some of my best photos came from the night before when I was scouting out locations and checking my camera settings.

A lot of areas that would be blocked off (the river paths) for the main event were open.

It was awesome.

The colours and silhouettes were phenomenal.

Also, very creepy.

The day of the festival was wonderful too.

I think my favourite installations were St. Oswald's Church and the Botanical Garden.

I got a lot of walking in.

2. The (now) annual parental Thanksgiving visit.

The following is a SUPER quick summary. There was a lot more.

Day 1: Heathrow airport pickup, Trafalgar, dinner in a crypt, Thames, and more.

To make my train to London I woke up at about 4:30 am.

If you were wondering (I doubt you were) this was the morning after Lumiere.

I was...tired.

Day 2: Westminster Abbey, cruise on the Thames, and Tower of London.

Day 3: Church at Hyde Park Chapel, the British Museum, St. Paul's Cathedral.

There were a lot of firsts for these guys this trip.

Including THEIR FIRST MUMMY!

As their archaeology daughter, I was so proud.

Day 4: Kensington Gardens/Palace, King's Cross, train to Durham.

This picture reminds me of all of those Harry Potter Fridays the Padre had.

Wishes fulfilled.

Day 5: First Christmas Market (Newcastle) and first Turkish Delight!

Day 6: Edinburgh. Elephant House, Museums, and rain.

Day 7: Durham walkabout and Thanksgiving dinner

(thanks parentals for the American stuffing...oh yum)

Day 8: York

The Padre loved standing approximately where the Emporer Constantine would have been crowned.

The Madre loved the Shambles and the Shop That Must Not Be Named.

Day 9: Final Durham walkabout and goodbye!

Day 10: Church and then to the hotel in Newcastle

Day 11: (4:30 am) parentals to the airport.

In an effort to be as depressing as possible, I came back to their empty room and bawled my eyes out.

True story.

I am not ashamed.

December:

Really just one thing.

PRAGUE.

I went to Prague for Christmas.

Funny story with that one.

My good friend, Oh Susanna, contacted me a couple of weeks before my Prague trip.

Here are lovely screenshots of the beginning of that awesome conversation which resulted in a non-solo-super-fun Christmas in Prague.

Prague was everything I hoped it would be and some more.

I wanted to do something completely new for Christmas since it was my first time being away from family (whether immediate or Jordanian).

I thought a complete change of scenery would help with homesickness.

It totally worked.

The trdlo's helped too.

At some later date there will be a post about this trip.

It will be awesome because...the trip was awesome.

January:

Not much non-thesis stuff.

I had a lot of submissions and deadlines in January and mid-February and it consumed my soul.

Truly, I was quite rung out by the end.

The good bit of January was, that after waiting nearly three years, it snowed and stuck.

It was glorious and it true Durham fashion, it was gone in a little over 24 hours.

Oh well.

At least I got some pics

February:

Not much for February.

Because of the deadlines, Thursday Take-offs were close to home and usually geocaching.

I did see HRH Prince Charles who came to St. John's and Durham.

He was different than I expected. In a good way.

There was the Fire & Ice Festival which was lovely.

It also fell on the weekend I turned in two chapters to my supervisor.

So, that was a nice break in between writing and pints of ice cream to calm my anxiety.

The end of February saw the "beast from the east" thundersnow and another storm whose name I can't recall.

I have never been so cold in my life.

Also, the snow came down in balls - not hail - but also not flakes.

Huh.

Also, some people walk around in bare feet.

Nutters.

I live in a really old house and so the windows are not perfectly sealed.
This means when there is crazy wind and snow, the snow makes its way into the room...

...and then it doesn't melt.

Because it is so cold.

And because my radiator barely worked.

On top of that, I got a REALLY bad cold from my Primary class.

I am finally getting over it (a week later).

During the storm, I was camped next to the hot water pipe and survived on soup and my sick tea.

The sick tea lights germs on fire.

It feels like a literal fire in my body.

It is made of lemon juice, garlic, honey, and...wait for it...cayenne pepper.

After I drink it, all congestion disappears for a couple of hours.

Germs...fire...bam.

It didn't stop me from going out Sunday morning for a little photography though.

mwhahahaha (evil laugh)

Don't worry, I didn't skip church, everything was cancelled due to the snow.

So I went to the cathedral, listened to my Primary lesson for next week, watched a family tie puppies to a sled with a toddler in it (yeah, puppies are not organised enough to pull a sled - they were in a tangled mess in seconds), and did a timelapse.