Winter Break Recap

I kept you up to date with all the stress and goings on of early December, I think. Well, it wasn’t that exciting: exams, end-of-year dinners, packing and preparing for vacation.

December 17-19: Barcelona, a quick weekend trip before the holidays kicked off properly. I met up with my friend Katie who was on a three-week stint around the contintent herself. Barcelona is an amazing city, it has hip design culture is just bursting out of its ears. Really fun, but much too short a visit. I’ve put up some pictures from my trip here.

Back to Edinburgh. My parents arrived, to spend a few days in town before taking off to Prague for Christmas. They loved it here – I mean, how can you not like a city with a castle overlooking it? I finished my Christmas shopping while they visited various sights around town and bought me dinner. It’s great going home for the weekend, but it also rocks having your parents in town.

After a taste of Auld Reekie, we set off for Prague, to spend the holiday with close family friends. We spent a week being treated like family (a.k.a. stuffed full of food) and being shown around Prague, which is another wonderful, amazing city. I didn’t take as many pictures since I’ve been there before, but I have a few up here, soon to be followed by more (as soon as my mom e-mails them to me, aHEM). Prague was definitely colder than Edinburgh, but we only got snow there for one day, which is unusual. Normally it’s quite snowy there; I’d have liked to have had a white Christmas, but a Czech Christmas is just as fun. In the Czech tradition, the big family meal of traditional soup, fried carp, and potato salad takes place on Christmas Eve. After dinner Baby Jesus brings the presents (the children have to go into another room to look out the window and see if he is coming). Eventually (surprise!) it announced that the Baby Jesus came (Oh no, you missed him! He must have come in the back door, maybe next year!). At any rate, it’s fun and a cool change from Santa Claus and his reindeer. The rest of the week was spent touring the town, and on our last night in the Czech Republic we went to a Medieval style restaurant. Let’s just say dancing on the tables, eating with your hands, fire-breathers, belly dancers, sword fighthing, and a witch hunt all made for an enjoyable evening. I’m not releasing the pictures of me and my friend belly-dancing on the tables, just so you know.

Back to Edinburgh again. My parents took off for the Highlands (bad idea, very cold), whilst I stayed in town to celebrate Hogmanay (the Scottish term for New Years). Even though the official street party celebration got called off due to high winds), I still had a good time with my man, Mark, who was in town. Depart Mark, return the parents for a few days before heading home.

And that was my holiday. I’m sad that it’s over. Now all I have to look forward to is preparing for the Britain-wide rugby playoffs and various radio projects. And classes.