This Christmas was a bit different but it was amazing and one that I will never forget. This year for the holidays I was blessed to have spent it traveling across Europe with my brother Devin and sister-in-law Dani. This is the first time I have been away from home and my mom and dad for the holidays, which saddened me but I was blessed to have enjoyed it with two of my favorite people. We started the trip off in Edinburgh and celebrated Christmas over in London. They are both amazing cities and I enjoyed my visits to both places.
I absolutely loved the architecture in Scotland, everything is very old and castle-like which made me feel like I was in a movie. I was only there a short time but I did in fact visit a castle while I was there. I had the great pleasure of visiting the Edinburgh Castle and it was beautiful. The tour guide was very informative and I learned a lot about the history of the castle as well as Edinburgh in general. We walked down the royal mile and visited the museum of illusions and some local shops and restaurants (vegetarian of course) which were really great. We also got to visit local pubs and hear and see authentic Scottish music and dance. I love experiencing different cultures so that was definitely a highlight of my trip.
Christmas in London felt quite familiar although I was thousands of miles away from home. London reminded me a lot of New York City which is home for me. Our airbnb was very nice and homey and I spent the day doing what I would normally do on Christmas day. We cooked breakfast in the morning with Christmas music playing and sang along which is always great. We found a good netflix show to watch throughout the day, drank hot chocolate and then cooked dinner later on. It was a very quiet holiday but I was in great company and I couldn’t have been more happy. The next day we went out into the city and did all of the touristy things. We visited Big Ben, the London Eye, took a boat ride to the London Bridge and did a hop on hop off bus tour which took me other other great places like Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park etc. Hyde park was great and definitely a highlight of London because they had the Winter Wonderland fair set up and it was huge! There were so many rides, games and cute shops there which we indulged in. To end off the night, we went ice skating and the whole park was lit up beautifully and filled with people. There’s so much to see there that I didn’t have time for so I will definitely be going back to London. I had a blast!
The toughest part was saying goodbye to my family which I had been with for 3 weeks but I was grateful for the time we spent together. I’m so happy they took the trip over to visit and spend the holidays with me. Couldn’t have asked for a better Christmas away from home!
