Epicentre
On this 21st of December, all of those who reside in the United Kingdom are coping with the effects of an amazing phenomenon. Christmas officially exploded. It started days ago, with the tremors set to continue for days to come as it would seem. In the weeks before Christmas, offices take half-days off and head into town for long celebratory lunches that seem to never end. Pantomime parties, or 'panto-parties', are also very popular around this time of year. When we arrived last week, Christmas was in full swing and quickly took the form of Halloween in New Orleans. It was a Wednesday evening when we took a walk on Wind Street, Swansea's answer to Austin's 6th Street, and bore witness to revelers puking in the streets while others stumbled out of pubs dressed as Captain America or Luciano Pavarotti. That was 6pm...we didn't stick around for closing time.
Tomorrow is Angie's office party.

But it's not only the drinkers that have Christmas by the throat, the shoppers are absolutely in overdrive. With shopping in South Wales so concentrated between the cities of Swansea and Cardiff, the public transportation and car traffic in and out of the towns is awful. Angie's 20 minute drive to work is followed by an hours drive from work. We hope our trip to Reading this weekend happens without incident.