Going on the 2nd January was a very good idea, and a very bad one. Firstly it was a good idea because there weren't many crowds, we didn't have to queue for anything. I hate crowds and queues make me angry, and we didn't have to become annoyed at the Christmas shopper tourists. However Saturday 2nd January turned out to be a very grey, rainy day. It's to be expected I suppose, we live in England, and it's January. But when it started raining like it had never rained before, and I was in the middle of my ice skating session, my fear heightened.
I had not been ice skating in at least three years. The last time I went ice skating was at Winter Wonderland and I fell over... when I was off the ice. You can see why I was a little nervous. It's an outside ice rink, there's bound to be puddles. But when it had been raining earlier on in the day, there were even more puddles. I just hoped that I didn't fall over and end up dripping from head to toe like some other poor people. At the beginning of the session I held on to the edge going around the rink, like so many other people. Then I became a little braver and over took some people, although I was still slightly wobbly. About halfway in to the session was when the torrential rain started, so many people skated for cover and left the ice rink. Oh but not us. We had paid for that hour. We were going to make the most of it, whatever the weather. The whole thing had now turned in to a pond, but because so many people had left the ice I became braver still and did so many laps of the rink without holding on at all!
I had forgotten how much fun ice skating was and this was such a fun thing to do on this rainy Saturday!
After the skating we very much needed to dry off and warm up. So we headed for one of the cabins with a cup of hot chocolate. There was a fire going and it was so nice and warm that I never wanted to leave! But eventually we dried out and decided to explore more of this Wonderland.
I LOVE Christmas markets (even though this was in January). The food, the smells, the German beer, the log cabins, the excitement and the feel to the place. I was so happy to be there!!
After wandering around for a while, we went to the ice bar. I was very much looking forward to this. I had never been in an ice bar before and it sounded so exciting!! We were given a cape/coat type thing and some gloves, and we entered the bar. The coldness hit me straight away and according to my friend, my face was a picture.
We stayed in the bar for about 30 minutes. Only some of which we spent a very brief amount of time sitting on the ice seats, sipping out of the ice glasses, then placing these on the ice tables. But the coldness soon got to us. My toes went numb and my friend couldn't feel her fingers. We started to feel sorry for the people working in the bar. We decided we needed to thaw out so we headed out to get another hot drink, and sit in another warm cabin.
We went on a ride, but as they were so pricey, just limited ourselves to one. As I'm a big scaredy cat when it comes to heights and rides, we thought the ice mountain looked like a safe bet, and it was fun!
Then it was time to leave. So we headed out through the amazing arc of lights.
It was such a lovely day. What a nice end to Christmas and start to the new year! Here is a before and after photo, before I left the house and when I got home. Look at the state of me afterwards, I felt like I had been put in the shower with my coat on, frozen and then dried off in the wind.
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| I wore this lovely tartan dress.
On a side note, don't you just love the toilets in London Marylebone station?!
Have you ever been to Winter Wonderland?
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