First monthly review for the year. It feels like a while since I’ve sat down and written one of these since I didn’t do a December specific one. Anyway, onto January, the first month of the year, full of excitement and possibilities. Thinking back to the start of January seems like so long ago!
New Years Eve
We rang in the New Year on the roof of our flat with my parents and our travel buds Emma and Matt. We stood there in the middle of London surrounded by fireworks from all directions. We just managed to see the top of the big ones from The London Eye but there were so many more in all the suburbs surrounding us. It was pretty epic.
Mum and Dad’s trip
The first couple of days of the year were spent sightseeing around London with Mum and Dad. We went through St Paul’s Cathedral (now one of my top churches we’ve visited), Greenwich Observatory, Thames Cruise, and a surprise dinner with my Uncle, Aunt, and cousins, who I didn’t know were going to be in London. Sadly, Mum and Dad had to go home, eventually, but I had such a fun Christmas and New Year with them in Germany and London. Excited to see you guys in a few months!
Amsterdam
Our first new country of the year, The Netherlands! We had a fun ole trip on the Eurostar for the weekend to the Dutch capital. I definitely found two days was not enough to explore this fun city. So many gorgeous townhouses, canals, and bikes. It was my dream city with all the bikes and bike lanes! More on this trip in next week’s post.
London
The rest of January was spent trying to stay warm in the freezing cold London weather. We’ve had snow, sleet, and frosts. So most evenings are spent getting home, and changing straight into comfy pants and woolly socks. But it’s been a good month for reading, I been chomping through some books recently (well, for me as a slow reader I’ve been doing alright if I do say so myself!)
Favourites from January:
Reading:
Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine by Gail Honeyman: 4 out of 5 stars. A good contemporary fiction book, which has been really highly rated and I found myself thinking about the book even when I wasn’t reading it. It’s written in a stream of consciousness style which is fun and gives further insight into the character of Eleanor. Like any good book these days they’re planning to make it into a movie, so I had to get in early to read it. I also thought I’d add a quote from one of my favourite parts of the book; when Eleanor dances for the first time and learns the YMCA dance:
“Free-form jigging, communal shapes in the air; Dancing was easy!…YMCA! YMCA! Arms in the air, mimicking the letters – what a marvelous idea! Who knew that dancing could be so logical? …From my limited exposure to popular music, people did seem to sing about umbrellas and firstarting and Emily Bronte novels, so, I supposed, why not a gender-and faith-based youth organization?”
The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod: I still haven’t quite finished this one, but it still makes the list! It’s an inspiring to help you to create a self-improving morning routine to work towards goals. I’m already a morning person but this is helping me to create a little bit more structure to my early starts.
Well, that’s about it for Jan. It’s been a good start to the year, let’s keep the good vibes rolling onwards.
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