Disclaimer: Always one for intertexuality, I have to say unfortunately this isn't supposed to be one such occasion. I came up with this title before I saw Corinne's latest blog entry. Thank you please.

This weekend saw Karaoke/Carrot/Vicky leave the realms of Reading and venture up to "Brummie Land". I haven't seen her since camp so it was all very exciting, especially when I found out that the outdoor temporary Ice Rink in town opened this weekend. After our lie in on Saturday we gave up on our plan of going ice skating in the morning and lazed around whilst postponing it til the evening. Plus we thought it would be all pretty lit up. Lit up it was and when we arrived, there was also music blasting out, albeit music which got a bit repetitive after a while but fun nonetheless. However, the fact that tickets were to be purchased from the booth that also sold tickets for our wheel, was our downfall as we ended up going on the big wheel too. Now at this point I should probably mention that I don't mind heights if I'm on the top of a building with an amazing view but ferris wheel style structures, like the 150 foot one on Navy Pier in Chicago, well they are a whole different ball game. So for the first trip round I was clutching the seat, telling Karaoke I didn't like it and attempting to point out Broad Street and other sights. Alas the wheel goes round three times due to their intent on value for the five quid you pay to go on, but by the second and third time I had relaxed and it wasn't too bad. It was fun to see Birmingham by night and I'm glad I've finally been on it. Next was ice skating, which once I got used to the ice, was amazing.



Despite only having been skating once before I was determined not to fall over and I didn't after nearly a whole hour of skating so I was very pleased with myself. All around me people were falling over and the Ice Marshalls were skating over to help them up, which I thought was really good because one of my fears with skating is falling over and someone skating over your fingers, eek! The highlight of the falling over crew had to be this one woman who fell over and an Ice Marshall helped up, only for her to lose her balance again and nearly pull the Ice Marshall down with her whilst simultaneously losing the contents of her pocket on the ice and when another Ice Marshall came over to help pick the things up have a bloke skate into his back. After an hour of skating, and aching feet and cold toes, we decided to hit the German Christmas Market. Tip: Wandering around a market does nothing to alleviate the cold, it only serves to make it worse. Chocolate covered bananas, whilst being very good, do nothing to alleviate cold either.