New Years Eve, Keytars and Hasselhoffs

Ok so New Years was well over a week ago, and I have been meaning to get this out since I got home on New years day, but that didn't happen. So New years in Berlin is really sweet. Apparently it is one of the biggest new years parties in the world. The main event takes place on a 1.9 Km strip of road starting at the Brandenburger Tor.  With an estimated 1 million in attendance. It was really awesome.

One thing I noticed is that they like their fireworks.  When I got to Brandenburger Tor it was pretty early (about 6pm) and things were already rowdy and fireworks were on the go... and they didn't stop. The fireworks went on constantly the entire time. and you could see them all over the city. 

"and boom goes the dynamite"

They had all kinds of stuff, including 3 stages other then the main stage, make-shift dance clubs,  rides, and somewhere to buy Gluhwein every two steps. Fantastic. I decided to take a walk around the ground and get a lay of the land. While walking around I saw that one of the stands was selling Grog... Now I have never had Grog before, but how can you refuse Grog... well I'll tell you. Grog is disgusting. I just figured it would be all old timey and each sip would make me feel more and more like a I was walking around in 1320ad. Unfortunately all that it made me think of was a hot mixture of water, bad beer and rancid rum. So yeah, I do not recommend it.

OOOh Ferris Wheel.

Make shift dance club

The Main Stage... pus some dumpsters

So after walking around a bit and getting some Gluhwein to remove the taste of Grog out of my mouth I thought that I would hit the stage. I got surprisingly close. considering I didn't try until about 9:30.  So below we see the MC's of the evening. Kind of like the Dick Clarks of Germany Wilhelm and... his female counterpart. I only know Wilhelms name because a big group of drunks guys kept on yelling his name trying to get his attention. Wilhelm was all business though.

MC's of the night

The first muscial act that I was around for was Loona. She's a german popstar of sorts, but she did not keep my attention as much as her KEYTAR PLAYER!! Yeah thats right, the mighty keytar is still living strong in Berlin. One of the most hilarious things were the back up dancers. They seemed more like they had practiced for a talent show at an office team building retreat and not for... a giant concert.

He knows what's up. Keytars

Next up was this guy... I have no idea what his name is (and I think he would e super surprised by that). The entire performance was filled with mid 90's latin pop-sensation cheese. He was super into himself, from the performance I am pretty sure he ends each day by staring at himself in the mirror and flexing all the while softly whispering to himself "you're the best, you're the best", or at least thats what I imagine... usually with some confused person in the room.

"You're the best, You're the best"

So yeah like I said this guy was classic solo artist. He did a couple of soulful songs reaching out to the crowd and showing off his moves, then he slowed it down to show that he is a deep musician by sitting down at his keyboard (not cool enough for a keytar) and busted out some R&B while a woman danced and grinded on him.... Classsy sir, just too classy. 

" She's wearing a top, so that means we're all style"

Next on our list of "bands that might be famous somewhere, maybe" is the Hermes House Band. These people were just flat out ridiculous bordering on embarrassing, but fun. They played only covers, and had a huge ensemble (curiously missing a keytarist) and sang a lot of disco. Around the time they came on I was thinking to myself "Gee, I sure hope there is a disco version of que Sera" and moments later my wish was granted.

Featured above is the Hermes House Band... WOOOOO. They were fun, but overwhelmingly lame.  I'm pretty sure when they make song decisions it goes like this

Musician 1: "Hey you know that song from the 70's"

Musician 2: " Yeah we should add that one to the set"

And that is how they sound. Not trying to put them down (well maybe a little), they were really fun, got the crowd going (if not laughing). Plus they all dressed super cool.

Nothing's cooler then dressing like Nardwuar 

This gut was so cool that his jacket later erupted into silver... or he changed it. 

"Hey guys check this out, it's sergent peppers-chic"... No it is not

The above three are just the singers, although they brought out teh rest of the band for a big.. poorly choreographed dance. It was just walking back and forth with a back bend... SUPER COOL!

Overall these guys were good, they weren't trying to be too serious about it, just having fun and being entertaining. They are kind of like if the Mellotones played bad music... If you know who the mellotones are. I mean they don't have a keytar, but I can live with that... sometimes. 

So after their big dance with many a turtleneck laden brass player, the band sent their personal mountie out to get us. By which I mean video tape and wave at us. Constable Benton Fraser would not be pleased with this type of mountie conduct... He doesn't even have a dog with him.

Where's your pride man!

Up next was just the most awesome thing ever, Middle aged guys who are convinced that it is still the eighties... I mean they were just fantastic. Don't believe me? Just check the guy in the picture below.

EPIC!

So yeah, he is pretty much the greatest man ever. I assume the headband is a style choice only and not being worn to conceal anything on the top of his head... It has a Brett Michaels quality to it... wait.

So if a flowing trench coat and gold pants do not convince you of how awesome this band is then first of all you have no soul (sorry about that) and check out below to have your mind rocked.

KEYTARS!!!!

That's right, after a two band lull in keytars they are back baby. I'll  give props to the first keytarist of the night, he new what was up, but this guy is just loving the keytar (and with good reason). Once again I am being lazy and just want to get this posted so I do not have much more to say about these just. Although the guitarist and bassist where matching cloths/ hair is also pretty sweet.

Keytar vs Guiter... such a one sided battle 

Everyone knows that to rock hard you must have a guy committed to the bubbles

Oh so after a few songs the band left and then six random men pulled a giant bag onto the stage. The reason being, so they can hurl snacks into the crowd. I guess the coordinators of this event all thought it was necessary to have a mid concert snack time. I must say that I agree. The only problem is that there were too many snacks. I was dodging them after I already filled a bag full of them. The Kiwi family in front of me had a big back pack with them and filled it to the brim. It seemed pretty wasteful, but people were scouring ground for a good 20 minutes after the fact trying to find more.

Snack!!

I know you already got to see some keytar, but this guy was just gold. so here's more of him.

"And my Dad said I would never get anywhere"

So continuing on with both the 80's and odd segues. The next performance took a while to set up. They had a good 10 violinists, 6 cellists, a bunch of flutists, and some other people I couldn't see because they lowered the light on the back stage a lot (also the reason why I don't have pictures of all of these people). 

SO, this is Adoro, and from my understanding they are kind of like Il Divo. So they busted on stage and sang an operatic version of.... Take on me? What? So yeah, it was weird, but they nailed it. But as soon as the song ended they all just looked at the crowd for a second the one said "Bis Spater" and they all promptly left with their large ensemble. ummmm ok. I'm not sure if they had more but the program was running long or something but yeah, see you guys later. 

"hey guys, I have a great idea for a joke"

Then we have Velile, she sang some African/club music and it was good. I really don't have anything of interest to say. Although here 2 background dancers were (as was the trend for dancing that night) terrible. At one point her drummer took a break from the drums to show off his capoiera skills.. and that was kind of cool and misplaced. If you like african/club music I say check her out. She also wasn't out there very long. it seemed like the Hermes house band was there forever but everyone else was being treated like it was a middle school talent show. Five minutes then get off the stage so everyone can have a turn.

After Velile was a band I got excited for and I didn't know would be there. It's the drapers /w Yolanda be cool. It was pretty sweet. They were decked out in pretty nifty costumes and the bassist had a sweet bass.  They obviously did up a version of "we no speak americano" albeit less techno-y then the version we are all used to. They also did a up some yakkity yak. All round my only complaint is the lack of keytars. I mean this was the third group in a row without one so I was pretty worried. 

That bass is just sweet

The next group once again disappointed in the area of keytar. It was the ensemble from "We Will Rock You" a musical using the music of Queen.

Trying to look cool enough not to warrant a keytar. It is not working.

These guys were fun and it really made me want to see this show. The costumes were all great and late 70's/ early 80's stereotype-y.  There is even a part where they all go into unison head banging.. Awesome.

Then there were 4 overweight middle aged women singing. They were alright. Once again they received the talent show treatment and were swiftly taken off of the stage. 

Then we have these guys.. and oh my god were they were... well i don' even know. In this band (Leslie Mandooki and the Soulmates) you have Bobby Kimball fromToto, Chris Thompson fromManfred Mann, Jimi Jamison from Survivor, John Helliwell from Supertramp. It's like they got a kid from the 1981 graduating class of "Anywhere High School" to toss together 4 musicians that he likes.  I really reccommend that if the pictures resolution is good enough to zoom in on the drummer and keybordist (no keytar, nice one Bobby Kimball) the mustaches on these men are heartwarming. 
Basically they just play songs from each of there bands hay-days. I was pretty pumped when "hold the line" was busted out. 

Why do we exist?

Then we have Paul Potts. Who's Paul Potts you ask (because I know that is what I was asking. He's the winner of x-factor, or something like it. He sings opera. The two MCs were interviewing him before he sang and they nearly missed the countdown for midnight. They caught it when it was at 6.

Paul Potts singing in the new year

So the fireworks picked up for a bit (and then went back to their ambient amount)  and they decided it was a good time to bust out the lasers (as anytime is).

Aaaaaaww Yeah. Lasers and fireworks.

Then came one of the greatest things ever. Paul left the stage and directly after the Hoff came onto the stage. Singin about freedom and everything.  I am just going to let you enjoy these photos of him, because honestly I have no words to explain the awesomocity of this experience.

David is overjoyed with this moment.. until

He remembers he left the iron on!!

The Hoff hitting on the ladies

So almost nothing can follow Hasselhoff, right. Well only one thing will not look like complete crap after him and that is....

Keytar!!! Well ok this is just Loona again, but the Keytarist really kicked it up a notch for their second performance. 

So now that it was the new year and all was well I decided to go back to wandering. Surprisingly despite my usual social awkwardness I am really good a approaching random people when I am alone at events like this. I just think "hey if something goes wrong I can just leave and never see them again" so there is no pressure. It was pretty fun. I actually ran into a guy from Montreal and talked for a bit. Once again when I meet a Canadian here we fell on the same subject: politics. I do not know why but every time I meet a new Canadian here the conversation very quickly becomes politics, but also a la Canada it is always a civil and polite talk. While talking to him I also got to meet a group from Ireland and had a couple of drinks with them. 

It was around 3 at this point and I thought it was about time to go home (though the party was still in full swing). So I bought a bottle of Sekt for the trip home and headed off. Of course when I saw some people looking for help with the rail system my Canadian instincts kicked in. It was a couple from Italy (Sara and Marco) and they had just gotten to the city the day prior so they did not know the transit well. I was able to direct them to where they needed to go, but only after we had some sekt together and talked for a while. I am actually friends with them now and went out to see them the next weekend (while they were still in Berlin). They told me to visit them in Rome sometime. So yeah, I recommend helping people. The rest of the trip was on the S-Bahn and pretty uneventful. Talked with a few people also heading home. Shared more of my Sekt. It was good. 

So all in all I once again highly recommend checking out Berlin for at least one of your new years eves. It is fun, it's cheap, it's flat out awesome. 

Christmas and stuff...

So the Holidays are pretty much over and I am back (back again, tell a friend).  I spent a good 10 days in Luxembourg with my Aunt, Uncle, Cousins, and cousins' friends. But I'll get into that later. 

First Just a couple of Pre-Luxembourg pictures for you all. The first one below is from the Alexanderplatz Weinnachtsmarkt. It is pretty sweet. No real story, just a picture, deal.

"Oh your Christmas Carousel is only 20ft high... I don't think I could downgrade back to that. "

The next picture is from Amsterdam Airport. While running around I decided to  snap a pictures of some of the cots that had to be used over that weekend (December 17th - 20th) when all the airports were shut down and all hotels in Amsterdam were filled up. I need to emphasize that there were hundreds of these cots in the airport, ridiculous.

"So heres your cot. Just remember that it is 50 in the 30 down... Oh yeah and we are all on the honor system so you are probably going to be robbed blind tonight."

Ok, we now have that out of the way, onto the Bourg of Luxum. So when I finally arrived in Luxembourg I was tired and had no luggage (it was picked up later that day). I was one of the first to arrive, only my Aunt (Nancy) and cousin (Julie) were at their house in Dippach Luxembourg. a couple of days later my Uncle Dan showed up. The first few days were uneventful, I shoveled their driveway, we went and Checked out Luxembourg city (pretty cool). We went to this sweet soup place (a La soup). All they served was soup, if it hadn't been for the modern chic styling, and pleasant staff (what I call C-Webb style... which only about 2 people will understand) it would be reminiscent of the Soup Nazi episode of Seinfeld.  They had daily soups  in a small seating area and I had no idea what the protocol was (there seemed to be some, so I let my aunt order because she had been there before). The soup was awesome and I even got some bread!! There was also this weird statue near a Hair salon that looked like Conan O'Brian as a gay stereotype... I also forgot my camera that day so no pictures of soup or Gay Conan.. I am sorry for my failures. 

Moving on

A couple of days later we headed to Trier, a small city in Germany near Luxembourg. We were doing this so we could pick up my other cousin (Holly) and her four friends (Grant, Alex, Will and Nick).  Her friend are also a bunch of misplaced Canadians, but they are going to school so they have a better reason  for being here. When we got into Trier it was a few hours before their train was coming in so we decided to wonder around. So here are some fun facts about Trier.

1. It is the oldest German city, originally established by the romans (at least according to my aunt, fact checking can suck it) 

2. They do still have a piece of roman wall (seen below) which is pretty cool.

Sorry for the suckiness of this picture, it was really dark and the only lighting near the wall was that tree, which  was no where near as bright as it looks

3. There are only two entrances into the city for the Luxembourg side, and one of them in a one lane bridge (once again this is according to my aunt, but when entering the city it seemed pretty legit).

4. Apparently they are too good for regular looking McDonalds (directly below

The only true McDonalds have red roofs and a play centre 

5. The streets are kind of pretty

OOOOOOOooooh pretty lights

So Holly and the rest of the gang made it and we all had a nice drive back to Luxembourg, also I got to find out that Alex is from Hants West in Nova Scotia. When we got back to the house, Nancy immediately put hats on us... as you can see by his hat, Alex is obviously the leader of our Christmas themed super team.  Our team handled such perilous missions as: "Fixing the slingbox internet connection", and "Drinking the any excess alcohol". We made a good team. 

Christmas powers activate, form of... Drinking.

So now we skip ahead to after Christmas... it gets too much hype and though fun is never super interesting... well sometimes it is. I got a Mankini, a german cook book and a sweet beer glass.. THERE I gave you a taste. Now moving on once more. Nancy and Dan went to Paris on Boxing day to spend the week at Euro Disney: The Happiest place with French People on Earth. This left the rest of teh crew with spare time. So we went into the city a couple of times.

Walking into Luxembourg

Although I was sad because apparently the Luxembourg people tear down Christmas decorations very fast, where two days prior there was a bustling Christmas market, now there was an empty square... the city is still cool though... but expensive compared to my sweet Berlin. Although you can find anything you need in the city, including a house made of underwear... I am assuming it was constructed inside this building.

Another little known fact about Luxembourg is that it contains Hogwarts as seen below.

Sup Harry

Despite my refusal to believe that this is not the home of Nearly headless Nick, my cousin insisted that it was actually the headquarters of the Luxembourg Bank.

You may have noticed that there was a fairly deep chasm underneath Hogwarts, this is call the Grund, it is the old part of the city. I didn't ask why it was called the Grund, I probably should have, or I could look it up... oh well. Fun fact about the Grund: There is a small piece of graffiti there that looks like my Uncle Goonsy... Yup, so here is another picture of it. We are up top right now and we are headed down.

The only way down is the stairs. This would not be a problem, but everyone in Europe lost the part of there brain that makes them know how to clear snow. So the stairs were more of icy death slides. So icy that they made Grant go fast enough for his feet to completely vanish. Given that he wears something like a size 19 that's an impressive amount of ice.

Grants feet reaching light speed.

We did eventually make it down with only some minor injuries. The Grund has some cool stuff. There are these tunnels that go all through the old city (they are blocked off mostly but you can get tours in the summer. One of the entrances is below

The Grund is also home to a super sweet sledding hill. So sweet that the boys (lacking sleds) used their jackets to slide down it. The only down side to this hill is that not too far from the bottom is a river with nothing to stop you from going into it so yo need to stay alert when you reach the bottom, lest you want an icy grave.

Sweet sledding hill, Icy grave not featured

We found an easier way up then the death slide and we cam up right near Hogwarts.. although the campus seems to have developed quite a bit from what I remember. It also had a sign that said it was a bank.. so that is kind of weird.

"Screw vast fields and magical forests. I want a Jamba Juice!" 

Much like Trier, Luxembourg has pretty lights

So that sums up the great events of being in Luxembourg.  It was a good time, I suggest you check it out. Although you may want to listen to my aunt who constantly let me know every time we went somewhere the "Everything is so much better in the Summer"

and now we end off with me on the Death Slide and being far too happy about it.

"WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!"

Airports Suck

So until now I have had pretty good luck with airtravel. No canceled flights,  no big problems, all good stuff.
Now however, I am getting bitch slapped around by the airport that I feel like I didn't shake it well enough (and i always shake it well enough).  Yesterday I was supposed to fly out to Luxembourg from Berlin (transfer in Amsterdam). Pretty easy right? It should only take 4 hours tops. WRONG. So yesterday all of Europe decided to have snow, and all the pilots in europe decided to be whiny babies.  Paris, Amsterdam and London were completely shut down. So my flight to Amsterdam was canceled right, well maybe. The person at the baggage drop off told me she would take my bags and to go wait in the ticket line and re-book a new flight... this would be so bad if there weren't 200 people already in the line. So I wait, and Wait , and 3 hours and two feet of movement later I hear a call for my flight to board.  WHAT!?!?!  I run back to the check in counter and ask the woman what is up.
Counter woman"Oh well the plane is taking off"...
Me "What?! you told me to wait and re-book"
Counter woman "well you should have listened to the announcements"

Just so everyone knows, I wasn't being oblivious to the announcements I just couldn't hear 90% of them because of the mob of people all pissed about their canceled flights. So I wait again.  2 hours later I am taking about my flight and a guy next to me asks
"which flight to amsterdam?"
Me: "1822"
Guy " It didn't go, we were all boarded and then they told us to get off"

And that was the biggest relief of the day. Knowing that my flight was only canceled and  I didn't miss it . I finally became fed up with the line and bought an hour of internet so I could cal KLM. 10 minutes later they booked me on a flight for the next day. I was still in line and everyone around me asked if I had a flight booked. when i told them yes,  they all furiously asked for the number.

So now I am waiting and hoping to get on my flight today. Europe really needs to learn how to deal with snow.

Also I know compared to stories of some of your out there that are more seasoned in flying this one is nothing, but I now appreciate all the horror stories a little bit better.

so to summarize

Canadians met in airpot (not mentioned) = 5
Total Hours of waiting in line = 5.5
Mexicans met = also 5

UPDATE
I was supposed to leave for Luxembourg again today and while waiting at the check in we are told that our flight is delayed 3 hours. Making it so that our flight to paris would be landing 30 minutes after my connection from Paris to Luxembourg departs.  LAME.

So I stand in a line again (this time only 2.5 hours). During this line time I made some friends with the people around me. Somehow we became the line police kicking people out who try to cut in front.
Anyway so I get to the ticket counter and they set me up with a flight tomorrow for 7am. BUT they are out of hotel vouchers. So I am paying for a hotel and I have to send the bill to the customer care at Air france to be reimbursed.  All in all this sucks and I really hope I my flight tomorrow goes off without any problems.


NEW UPDATES.
So my 7am flight on sunday was canceled... well not canceled but they wouldn't take anyone on it that was on a connecting flight (ie me) because Amsterdam airport was full. So 4 more hours in line.  I finally got to the head of the line and this random woman came out of no where and tried to get in front of me.

me : "um sorry but the line starts way back there"
woman: "no, no it's ok that's my friend working I just need to ask here a question" *continues to walk forward*
me: " ma'am, we have all been waiting a long time, some of us for days. If you want to talk to your friend then wait in line"
Woman: "I just have one question, I will just be a minute it is my friend"
Me: " well, your friend is working"
woman: " Just one question"
*a window opens and the woman walks forward toward it*
me "  I DON"T CARE IF IT IS JUST A QUESTION! I only have one question too, and it is how can I get to Luxembourg, so wait in line"

The woman then walked over to a couple of other people all holding luggage and walked towards the back of the line.
SO i get the the ticket counter and the attendant tells me to catch the 11:05 departure to amsterdam (at the time it was 10:50). I ran to the check in and got there just in time. Apparently Amsterdam was taking people again. So I get there and everything is great. The are cots everywhere from the night before when hundreds of people had to sleep in the airport (crazy).

So I am relaxed and relieved. I got to my gate and grab a beer. until about 4:30 when I receive a message telling me that my flight is canceled. But not to fear, the airline is trading boarding passes for train tickets to luxembourg. Fortunately the wait for train tickets was not too long, unfortunately when I look at my itinerary the trip will take over 7 hours and I had to change trains 5 times.

Also, The Dutch train system is total crap. There is no one around to tell you where to go, the trains are not marked so you know where they are going. Fortunately I met a couple people going the same direction as me. One was Arnold a Luxembourg native that was going to Manchester for Chemical engineering. And some old guy from Belgium.

So the old guy knew the trains well and I showed him my itinerary. He told me that it would be a lot longer because on Sundays they do work on the train tracks. This wouldn't be so bad, but that meant Arnold and I would be missing our connecting train in Brussels to go to Luxembourg.  The man assured us that there would be a later train to get us there that night, right before he started talking about how he goes to Amsterdam every two weeks for all of the girls.... and discussing the various places in Europe and how they few prostitution... oooook.

The creepy guy leaves us somewhere in Belgium and Arnold and I head to Brussels. We get there around 11pm and find out that the next train to Luxembourg is at 6am.... Shit.

So we left the train station (where there were a lot of creepy guys asking us if we needed a taxi and eyeing our bags). And went outside in search of  a cheap hotel to spend the night (outside there were a lot of scary guys just eyeing our bags).

I am sure that parts of Brussels are very nice, but the part I was in was terrifying. The cheapest hotel we found was 80euros (the room was about 5 square meters), had only one bed.  Both starving we headed across the street to fry place. The guy called Arnold a little bitch because he only had Birtish pounds and couldn't find a cash machine. NICE.

We headed back to the hotel and slept. Knowing each other for a total of 6 hours now Arnold slept on the floor and gave me the bed. Four hours later we were up and getting ready to catch the train.

We got the train and 3 hours later got into Luxembourg, Arnolds drive was waiting for him and he left, but I had to call my aunt still.
None of the pay phones took coins though, you have to pay 6.50 to get a phone card and use that in the pay phones. Only problem is that none of the receivers on the phones worked. When I called, I could hear my aunt, but she couldn't hear me... at all.

"Is that you Chris? if your at the train station just stay there, and I'll try to find you"
Good thing it was me.

So I'm good now right? Wrong. My luggage from Berlin was still somewhere. It was pretty easy though, in the morning flights were heading into luxembourg again so I was able to grab my Luggage in the afternoon. And that was teh worst travel experience I have ever had. I am at my aunts now and it is great. I hope my return trip is much better.

Merry Christmas all.

Police, and protests and Santa? Oh my

Ok, So not sure if you heard about this, but a couple of weeks ago there was a bit of a terrorism scare in Berlin that put a lot of things on high alert. Mostly people were warned to be carful around all of the touristy places (weinnachtsmarkt and the like). So I did not know this and I went wandering around these places. most looked pretty normal, but Brandenburger Tor was littered with police.

Super long queue of Police vehicles, and yes they are all VW and Mercedes

"No Biggie, just blocking off this very public area you can go that way"

Actually the Police were really friendly despite their intimidating feel. They were just directing people away, letting them know what was up.  The Assault rifles that some of them had were a bit much, but hey, they have them in the airports as well. So yeah. 

As I meandered that day i also saw the periodic person with a sign. One one the subway, one on the street. It seemed like I just missed a protest or something. Although I did catch the tail end of it. Or at least one  of them. These folks are from Die Linke, or "The Left" a political group that is very critical of the current Merkel Government. It seemed pretty messy though, and a lot of trash was left on the ground. I was not pleased with these activists. So I passive aggressively picked up some trash while glaring at them (thats right, I am that hard-core).

Although I also ran into random's with signs and flags, heres one guy just wondering around the park. 

I have no idea what this guy is protesting (or if he actually is protesting), but there he is full of vim and vigor and ready to... walk some more. 

So i made m way to Ptsdamer platz where I saw something I had forgotten. A fake building. I saw this earlier but I did not have my camera and then I forgot about it. So yeah, they put a giant tarp over a building that they are... building, of what it will look like (maybe I think), complete with Ipad ads. 

The reason I came to Potsdamer Platz is for the Weinnachtsmarkt that is there.  This is one of many little Christmas markets that open up around this time of year and it is pretty sweet. They have food, sweets, Gluhwein (it like a warm fruity spiced red wine they drink this time of year). Plus these places just look delightful. I'll have some more pictures later of a bigger one at night with all the lights on, but for now just have a taste of this. 

And because I needed some pants I went into the mall and no mall would be complete this time of year without Santa. 

Oh hi Santa

Except this Santa wasn't inviting children to his lap, but he was cracking jokes and working the crowd. When I started to leave he sang a few songs. HE was really more of a lounge act and less of a Santa, but still awesome