Hello 2009, from -1C Westminster Penguin Huddle.
The end of 2008 has descended suddenly in temperature, making the evenings very chilly indeed. London is usually relatively balmy compared to other northern habitats; but we were starting to experience close to zero everynight. Brr!
Since we stayed in London for Christmas, we also were looking at bringing in the new year in London as well. We arranged to have a group dinner in Piccadilly at an Italian Restaurant called Biagio. After tallying everyone up, we had a group of ten of us for the evening: Nick, myself, Melanie, Nath, Mel’s friends Kevin, Kirsten & Gareth, Gareth’s parents from Oz, and Tim. We drank many bottles of red wine (wine blanket) and enjoyed some fabulous (and yet surprisingly cheap) Italian food. By 10:30pm, we decided we’d better head down to the Thames!
We navigated our way down to the Thames in the frosty -1C air, we had come prepared with red wine in a soft drink bottle (felt like we were teenagers again!) as glass is banned in the surrounds of Westminster bridge. Some of the areas had been closed by the police, but we managed to find a perch on some stairs near the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Art) where we could view the fireworks display and have some room to move. Perfect for a big penguin huddle to keep warm!
We had such a fun night! The fire in the sky brought in the new year with a surprise as we were too far away to hear the count down; but we all offered our applause and celebrated the turn of another year. Welcome ’09!
