So the holiday season is finally coming to an end. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel of antisoberness that is the epic two weeks of Scottish holiday merriment. I’ve been off work since the 24th and I’ve gotta drag my ass to work tomorrow morning. Let me tell you, these people know how to do a party. Sheeit. I haven’t updated in so long because the sheer amount of stuff I need to write conflicts severely with the sheer amount of excess that accompanies the xmas/nye powerhouse.

My holiday started with a Christmas party held by my friend Glen(n?). He laughed at me when I called and asked, “when does the party start?” then asked “so when should I show up?”. I told him he should watch Swingers. I showed up when he told me to show up, had a few drinks from the Edinburgh cooler (either a bathtub full of Edinburgh yellowish water or the outside – both are plenty cold enough) then ran to get a drink with Sophie. We returned to a much more packed party, did the sometimes fun sometimes awkward socializing thing and drank. Sophie had to meet her boyfriend in training so I wished her well and figured I’d catch up with her post party, assuming it would be done round about midnight. SILLY MATEO! Really the highlight of the party was Ian, the other host of the party, his schedule:

7:00 – preparty: prepare snacks and booze for upcoming guests
8:00 – welcome partygoers, take coats, make drinks
9:00 – continue welcoming
10:00 – start drinking
11:00 – continue drinking, start dancing, stumbling, being the general party animal,
12:00 – disappear from party, pass out ontop of coats fully clothed,
12:00-6:00PM next day – Sleep

It was hilarious because in the period of 2 hours he went from friendly party host, to fun drunk party host, to smashed party host, to smashed partygoer, to loud dancing guy, to disappearing. All of a sudden he was gone! Hilarous.

As the party was winding up I was nicely drunk, and whoever I was talking to started rolling a joint (somehow I get attracted to these people – stonersense ala spideysence perhaps?). It definitely went well with my booze…for a bit…then the room started spinning a bit. Luckly there were very few people there so I was able to get laid down and deal without crashing into a wall or anything. In the end I ended up crashing there (thank goodness – glen/ian, y’all rawk), and I was introduced to pop culture life question #1 from pulp fiction.

I had a rampant week of work and last minute Christmas shopping, picking up the best gifts I could find for cousins who I’ve only seen a handful of times in my life. I think I did a pretty good job in the end. One of the most difficult things about living in a new country is learning where to buy things. Especially as I have become a pro at the charity shops here in Edinburgh, having to travel to department stores or (gasp, help me) a mall, is something new to me. I managed to avoid most of that crap, but still learning where to find things is pretty tough. Anyways, I think everyone made out pretty well and I dug a nice hole in my bank account – which really is what Christmas is about, right? AND, in the meantime I discovered that one of the major department stores have an amazing yarn section (imagine my excitement!). I picked up some great stuff to make gifts for my cousin, but sadly ran out midscarf and had to return only to discover they were out of that yarn and had to start on a completely new project. Bugger…

The night before Christmas my cousin and I drove up to Kilmany, (tiny village – think 10 houses) about 50 minutes north of Edinburgh, where my aunt and uncle live. They just moved into this cottage and it is an awesome property. Definitely the type of place I’d like to live in someday. The cottage is just the right size for the two of them and the land it sits on is great. It is about an acre (I think) and they effectively have a pasture on the west side that goes around to the north side in an L shape and their property is bounded in the north by a creek. They’re planning on getting sheep after the winter is over - hotness (well, seeing as it is Scotland, maybe coldness would be more appropriate).

My aunt and uncle used to own a pub/restaurant/hotel, so they are used to working for christmas. This is their second year not working there and I think they haven’t learned that they don’t have to go ALL OUT for the holiday as though tons of visitor were to be coming through. For christmas eve they prepared a table full of bite-sized stuff, plenty to feed twice as many people there and the variety was amazing. I can’t believe they were able to make so much different food come out of the kitchen at the same time. Their neighbors came over for the night and we enjoyed their company. Before they came over my uncle described them as the type of people that have been in the university culture for their whole lives, never working in the quote/unquote real world. A more proper description could not be found. Imagine a UCI graduate cum admin lady married to a UCI professor. Good people, good conversation, lots of food, lots of drink, medium amount of pot. I crashed at my cousin’s (Cameron) place and (for the first time ever) had a really interesting and nice conversation with the guy.

The next morning we got to my aunt and uncle’s place and proceeded to open the champaign (sp?) for breakfast. A huge buffet style Scottish breakfast was prepared with all the usual breakfast stuff and, of course, oj/champaign & joints - it just wouldn’t be christmas without them. Stuffed yet again, my cousin, uncle and I took a two hour walk to help digest while the cousins & liam smoked pot to the extended lord of the rings movie (4 hours!). We got back with another two hours of movie to go, so we kind of just doddled around while my cousin (Anthony) started the feast which was to come. Most christmas dinners I have with my direct family involve a turkey. But my direct family doesn’t have a professionally trained chef in it either. This dinner consisted of: turkey, lamb, chicken, and nut roast for the vegetarians. Holy crap. I was completely stuffed for the 3rd time in 24 hours. After dinner one of kellie’s friends from childhood came over with her husband and we all talked with drinks before heading back to Cameron’s place to crash.

Boxing day arrived with a general malaise unbeknown to me until this day. Everyone was just sick of the excesses that christmas had. You could see it on everyones’ face, all overwhelmed and screaming “my food coma has extended into its second day and has no sign of letting up.” In the general theme of the season our drive back was a bit excessive, taking an extra 45 minutes from dropping people off and picking people up. Finally we made it home and we all in a sort of pissed off manner (in the way people get when they’re hungry, but in the opposite way, this time because we were too full) unloaded our christmas leftovers/chocolates/bags up the four flights and crashed. Of course (because this is the season of excess), glen(n?) had invited me for boxing day drinks and sophie had invited me to a party, so I had a few hours of rest before getting to head out to those soirées (sp?).

Because it was a holiday the busses were running on uber-shitty orange county-esque schedules so it took me a grip of time to get over to the other side of town where I had a relaxing few drinks with some friends at glen(n?)’s place then headed to Sophie’s boss’ house party. Lucky for me I was able to get a ride over there, because the buses had made me late to getting drinks I was uberlate to the house party. Uberlate to a party means just in time for meeting the uberdrunk stragglers still at the party. I walked in to a game of drunken jenga, proceeded to kick some ass, took a shot for one of the losers at jenga, was told by sophie “I never see you drunk” (sound familiar?), made a friend (who hopefully will call me for drinks), smoked some hash, walked home and crashed (I’m sure I’m forgetting something). All in all a good xmas.

Coming soon:
Part 2 - Campus rep #2 comes to Scotland...