The Winter Wonderland

London is gorgeous at Christmas. I feel like I'm living Love Actually! And to fully experience the London Christmas season, I have been researching fun things to do!! One such fun thing was the Winter Wonderland taking place in our very own Hyde Park! 

Hyde Park is really close to us, and I made Andrew go with me :) We bundled up and headed over, Starbucks in hand! The first thing I saw was the "Wheel of Excellence!" It was the same ferris wheel we saw in South Africa at the World Cup! Right next to the wheel was Santaland and all the games! There was an archery game that I needed to try immediately. For those who don't know, I was the archery champion of my Middle School in 6th, 7th and 8th Grade. The game was to pop four balloons arranged in a little cluster with five arrows. My first shot went in between two of the balloons. Balloons that where literally touching each other! My accuracy was pretty impressive, in my opinion, because all my arrows ended up in a tight little circle. My first attempt at the archery game, I popped two of the four balloons. I'm not going to lie, I was a little disappointed with myself. I'm pretty sure I was supposed to get a prize for popping half of the balloons, but unless it was the large giraffe that you get for popping all four, I did not want a prize. 

So then we checked out the rest of the festival, venturing into Santaland! It was fantastic and totally oriented for younger kids, so naturally I was in heaven! I suppressed the urge to yell "Santas coming!!" and "you're not Santa, you smell like beef and cheese!" as we walked through :) After that, it was off to the grown up side of things. 

The whole Wonderland was German market inspired. There was lots of mulled wine, and brats and spicy sausages and little Chalets everywhere. There were a bunch of Carnival rides too, but they were all "spinning" rides, so there was NO way I was getting on - the spinning and the fact that those rides are broken down and put back together who knows how many times... 

My phone died after Santaland so no pictures after that. I will be going back to document more because there was an ice skating rink and a blow up restaurant in the shape of an ice cube and a haunted house ride and market stalls... tons of good stuff!! We ate a brat and then tried archery again. Again, my arrows were tight, but I only popped one that time! Andrew tried this time too and popped one as well. The lady attendant gave him a glow in the dark necklace. hehe. 

I felt like a kid, it was so much fun! Apparently it's really nice at night. I'm really looking forward to going again!! The giraffe will be mine.