2008- What a year :D

2008 has been awesome to say the least!! Here is as quick a rundown as I can manage (with my favourite picture of each event- otherwise we'll be here all day, lol)

January: MacSoc Ceilidh

Paintballing

February: Mine and James's Anniversary

Project's handed in

Raymond and Lucie get married

MacSoc Subcrawl

March: Pi Day

Last Day of 4th year Paddy Pop

April: Random Library Laughter

Laura and Lesley's Haunted Tour of Edinburgh

May: Exams finally done with Headphone Disco (the last ever student Cheesy Pop for us)

The start of the My Life With series (http://www.mylifewith.co.uk/)

Celtic winning the league at the last minute

June: Grad Ball

Getting my Accenture Job

Mum and Dad's Party

Getting the exam results and my 2:1 and everyone elses awesome results too!!

Patrick Thomas makes his arrival

July: Graduation

Laura and Lesley Do the European Tour of H and M's

August: Laura turns 21

Arran Weekend

September: Patrick's christening

Jade's 21st party

October: Kate turns 18

One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest at the Ramshorn

November: My birthday cocktail party

Reliving former gigs with Elaine when we went to see My Vitriol

December: Patrick's 1st Christmas

Some good nights out

Talking to Pammy again

I was trying to pick out a favourite memory from this year but its waaaaay to hard to do!! In addition to the specific events above there have been some really funny nights out and general laughter and good memories just of everyday events. I have had such a fun year, with the saddest thing being graduating (I really miss being a student, studying and seeing the coolest people every day)- what does that tell you, eh?!! I am so grateful for all of it!!

2009 resolutions: Get at least 15 things from my list finished (http://www.before30.co.uk/)

Things to look forward to:

More travelling hopefully

Patrick's first birthday

Starting at Accenture

I Hope 2009 is as awesome as 2008 :D

Best wishes for your health and happiness this coming year, thanks for standing by me :D

Quickie

So I have been reading a few blogs the last few days and I realised I have neglected mine lately. Not sure if I will finish the Europe 2008 blog but you never know.

This is just a quick update before I do a year end one in the next few days. Since I last wrote a few things have happened.

I was unemployed for the first time in my life. It sucked. Joined an agency and am now working for Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority. People good. Job sucks. Boring and at times horrific, to say the least. Please look after yourselves, I don't want to see anyone I know claiming!!

Patrick Thomas was Baptised on Sunday, September 14th 2008 in Sacred Heart Church, Kildrum. It was a lovely, though hectic, day and I was the very proud Godmother of a baby who is happy, funny and going to be very big!! And aware of fashion (he seemed unimpressed with his white suit, lol). :D:D

We went to see One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest, directed by James Keenan and starring Derek (MacDonald) Banner. It was excellent. Well done guys!!

Kate scarily turned 18 years old on October 14th and she is no less Kate than ever (funny, a bit crazy and a typical teenager).

There was a funny Halloween. I went out with Aaron and his friends. We walked from Driftwood to Classic Grand and back to Classrooms because everywhere else was packed. For those of you who know Glasgow you will know what a trek that is!!

I turned 25 on November 11th and many of my best friends turned out on the following Saturday for some celebratory cocktails. Another comic night. Somehow everyone who was drinking went from sober to merry in one drink (though that was probably to do with some interesting measures and few mixers, lol). There was lots of good chat. The resounding quote from the night was, "can I get some more of that antifreeze stuff?" Tasty :D Thanks Mr Keenan for creating that for us. I think the rest of the pictures tell their own story (feel free to ask James what his opinion of ball gowns is now).

There has been random family fun, including a cool afternoon with Raymond, Lucie, Mum, Dad and Natalie in Lauries on King Street listening to a Jazz band. We have also been preparing Patrick for initiation into our family's crazy loudness on Christmas day.

And now it is nearly Christmas. Again. Yay. (though I am completely unorganised which is not actually like me at all).

I will do an end of year blog sometime between Christmas and New year but mean time, I wish you all a very merry Christmas!! Eat lots, laugh lots and love lots!!

:D:D:D:D

Prague

We arrived in Prague and found our way to the hostel eventually, only to discover that our room was in another building on another street entirely 10 minutes walk away!! We got there and since it was so early we had to put our stuff in a cleaning cupboard and head straight out. We made our way into the centre and met up with Mathlete Christine and her friend Rhona (I hope that's right) and had pancakes and hot chocolate for breakfast. Christine and Rhona were doing a similar trip and they were leaving that afternoon for Venice or Rome (I forget which one they were going to first, I think Venice makes the most sense due to where it is but that doesn't mean anything with the sometimes illogical trains in Europe) and going up the western side. It was pretty cool to see someone we know from home in a random European city. After they left to go for their train we wandered around the shops in the drizzly rain for a bit until it was time to go back to the hostel.
This particular room was probably our favourite!! It is usually a student dorm room that is used as a hostel in the summer months. It was clean, had an en suite shower, a fridge and lots of unnecessary furniture , and Walter. That's right folks, our tap had to be named due to its freakishly over sized comedy nature :D lol. Needless to say we took lots of pictures of our room in joy at its coolness (including the glow in the dark stars on the ceiling- I know we are truly easily amused).
We chilled for a bit, had really long showers and made a plan of what to see in Prague, using the many maps and guidebooks we had. We then headed back out (via the metro, once again we are at the end of a metro line), to get some food. As usual we didn't know what we wanted but when we arrived in the main square there was a jazz festival on (a recurring theme for us) and some awesome smelling smoke.We followed the smell to where a stall was BBQ-ing chicken kebab on stick type things. Oh My Actual God (yes Laura and I do talk like each other now. in fact sometimes we don't even speak any recognisable English but we still get what the other is meaning, which is even more weird given that neither of our brains works in exactly what you would call normal ways (or however that sentence is supposed to go))!! These kebabs were heavenly!! So tasty and so cheap and so exactly what we wanted (even though we didn't know what it was we wanted)!! I cannot describe the awesomeness of them!! People walking by were clearly in awe of our awesome looking kebabs!!

We sat by the astronomical clock, enjoying our tasty dinner and the laid back jazz music in the background. We then went a-wandering around to absorb the atmosphere and check out the different things Prague has to offer. We got into a big long chat with a guy in a shop about Scotland and the fight for Independence and other such likes. Pretty random, but cool.

We were pretty knackered and it was getting late so we headed back to our room via a supermarket to get things for our fridge :D First impressions of Prague are that it is really cool and laid back despite the 9 bazillion tourists packing the place out!!

The next morning we managed to sleep through all our alarms (damned Sleepy selves were victorious!) and didn't get up till 1.33pm. Shocking I know (although we managed to justify it to ourselves as usual, lol). We finally got out and went to King Wencelas's Square, sang a quick rendition of the carol (had to be done) and went onwards to the Charles Bridge (on the way we got the worst sandwiches ever!! though the mint aero we found made up for it slightly). The bridge itself, once we finally got there, was pretty cool despite the tourists and you can see why its such a big attraction. We then continued wandering up the steepest, cobbliest hill ever made in the history of the world (me? exaggerate? never :P) We had to rest on the way up (though we did buy pretty crystal necklaces as a souvenir of the trip) and we booked Vienna's accommodation. We finally staggered to the top and the view was worth the effort of getting up the hill. We wandered around past the castle and cathedral which looked pretty cool from the outside and down the lane with little cute pastel coloured houses on it. There was a statue of a skull on a guys back, which was nothing special, but there was a big pack of Scouts there and they caused us lots of giggling when they smacked its ass and then fell about laughing themselves!!

On the way back down the hill the afore mentioned scouts and a troop of brownies were marching down, singing. Bringing up the rear of this was a teenage couple consisting of a scout and a brownie holding hands which we both simultaneously "aaaawed" at, which then caused us to burst out laughing. We had the chicken kebabs again (I'll be kinda sad not to eat them again) and watched the astronomical clock chime (not magical as the guide books say it is) and tried not to get knocked down by horses and carriages. We headed back to get an early night due to our impending early rise for the train to Vienna. Outside the room though, Laura kept dropping the key and it took us aaages to get into the room due to our hysterical laughter. It was like she had had 10 shots of Jaegermeister and 10 JD and cokes in the last 5 minutes such was her inability to unlock the door :

We managed to get up early enough to be on the train to Vienna in time for getting a good spot for our luggage, which is always a good thing!!



Next blog on Vienna will follow soon me thinks :D

Things to Remember

Walter, the freakishly long tap :D

Shelves, bookcases, cupboards, desks, high ceilings- general luxury for £12 pppn :D

Lots of scarily steep escalators and stairs everywhere!!

random chat about Scotland and politics from a shopkeeper

pretty crystal

cheap shopping

awesome chicken kebabs

lots of amazing architecture

Laura's Crossing

laughing about sitting identically (after looking like we had fallen out) on the metro

meeting Christine and Rhona for "coffee" and discovering they laugh at the same stuff as us (such as posing as statues)

crazy maps and street signs (some streets not on the maps at all :S)

slow for the red man, building tension, then GO GO GO on green man

reception on the underground and telling location and adverts on my phone

steep hills that go on for eternity

awesomeness of the jazz festival as soundtrack to our lives

funny noises we make (eg comical screaming)- me and a small dog, Laura and a dead bird

the number of small dogs everywhere (this applies everywhere since Berlin)

weird leering guys on the bridge

the mass of brownies and scouts and the scout couple we both "aawed" at (it was so sweet)

terrible sandwiches and the awesome aero :D

the vitamins called Stupidium

Quotes

F: did that guy just cluck at us? (imitates noise repeatedly). it sounds like a horse!

C: Did that guy just call us a horse? Or, a chicken?

Oh my god, how insulting, we are horses with 1 chicken leg!!

(This prompted lots of laughter and the conversation developed into a chicken legged pogo stick with a horses head, followed by a conversation about us being bugged IE recording devices and us wanting an unedited copy (etc)

"Imagine the y=x^2 graph"
Laura describing Walter to David

"I didn't realise before but this is exactly what I wanted"

Us, about most of the food we ate

"Is that what I think it is?!!"

Us, alot

"Heeeellloooo, Ladies"

Random Guy to us

"Cluck"

Lots of random guys
"Cos we are living, in an aero world..." (singing)

Us, singing to the tune of Material Girl in the subway stations that look like they have aero bubbles on the walls