No turkey, just soup

We travelled by rail, under water to arrive in London. My hands were cold and clammy before entering the chunnel and my heart raced throughout the 40 minute under water duration of the trip.

It was a freeing feeling to arrive in an English speaking country after such a lenthy time not speaking the language. We are on to the last leg of our journey.

I enjoyed the last French leg of our journey. We stayed with my dearest friend Gill and her parents in their village near Toulouse. We drank wine that never seemed to give me a headache, no matter how much I drank. And ate like royalty. I felt so blessed to be able to spend such a lovely week with friends that feel like close family.

And Paris was Paris. Lovely and hard. Searching for a stranger's smile is an exhausting task, but when it happens it washes away the majority of curtness you receive being an English speaking foriegner.

We accepted our chosen role as tourist and saw the sites with such ferocious velocity that it would make Rick Steves' head spin.

Eiffel Tower in lights, Pere Lechaise cemetary tour, Montmarte, book store roaming near Notre Dame, drinks with strangers we met at a book store, the Louvre, climbing the Eiffel Tour on a clear day and of course the decadent Palace of Versailles.

Because of our flight to India, London was the place we had to spend Christmas. So we wanted it to be comfortable and memorable. I caught a great deal on the Hilton Hotel in the city centre. So we dropped our bags and raced around the city on Christmas Eve preparing for the mass closures the next day.

By early evening we had run our most important errands and were on our way North to spend our Christmas Eve with strangers. What? I had found an events listing on couchsurfing.com of numerous Christmas events going on around London and got in touch with the organizer of 'Super Orphans Christmas'. So, we had enough beer and wine to last the evening and I had picked up a store bought trifle to help ring in Christmas day.

We were picked up by our host Dan, and arrived at his parents' place (they were in San Fran) in posh suburbia. Our new friends were waiting for us around Dan's dinner table. They had all met that day and were spending the entire Christmas holiday at Dan's.

We had a few drinks and then moved onto the local pub. Where it seemed the entire hamlet decided to spend their evening as well. We had a wonderful time with our little orphan Christmas family. I hardly felt like an orphan. We wanted to stay, but had to catch the last tube to the city at midnight. Wearing our santa hats (gifted to us by a fellow orphan, Jaf from Singapore) we 7 Christmas orphans hugged eachother and wished eachother a Merry Christmas. Brandon and I waved goodbye to their warm, smiling faces in the lamp light of that suburb side walk. Before we ran to the station.

Christmas morning we prepared our instant coffee and Baileys, fresh fruit, cinnamon buns and cheese. And enjoyed our morning in our hotel room with Christmas music playing on BBC Radio 2, while we ate and opened our little gifts to eachother and the few gifts my mom had sent for us. Finally it felt like Christmas. But it was a wonderfully low key Christmas.

We walked around the barren streets of London and attended the Euchrist service at St. Paul's Cathedral.

Later in the evening spoke to our families and I shed a few tears.

Sadly, no turkey. Just ministrone in a can.

Today we fly to India. More adventures lay ahead.