Merry Xmas

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So it´s still raining! We woke up and headed out for a cooked breakfast, I seemed to be the only one who wasn´t suffering the effects of Jungle Juice a day later (hooray!) We opened all our presents and settled down to watch a bit of cheesy tv and chill out before we had to go to Hajar´s to start preparing the Xmas feast. Just as the film was about to get good, the lights flickered and the electricity went out! It came back half an hour later for the very last line of the film, lasted about an hour and a hlaf and then was gone again! What we hadn´t thought through was that all the water is pumped using electricity and we ended up with no running water!

We dressed up in our best Christmas clothes in the dark and headed off to see what we were going to be able to prepare with no hot plates or running water! Luck finally decided to shine on us and as we walked through the gates of Hajar´s block the lights came on and everything was OK for the rest of the day.

Here´s who was there:
Me, Sophie and Emma (England)
BEanie and Lou (England)
Hajar, John and Jeannie (Canada)
Laurent, Alain and NAdja (Switzerland)
Sanna (Sweden)
Penny (Australia)
Cason (USA)

Food was an incredible success, Emma and I made soup and extremely garlicky garlic bread, The swiss, Beanie and Lou made a great salad, Sanna made Swedish meatballs, the others whacked some meat on a big barbie and Hajar made chocolate custard tart type things. Pretty impressive really!

We had secret santas, and some of the girfts were hysterial...maracas (which I wish I'd taken, but might have driven me mad for the rest of the journey), coffe, toys, chocolate, whistles mini books and a few rude ones (which I´m not mentioning cause my Grandma and parents read this!!)

All in all it was an incredibly memorable day and I don´t think I´ll ever have another Christmas quite like it!

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Photos

homemade party hats
Partly for the festive spirit, partly so we could remember each other´s names! Not that this helped Beanie at the end of the night when he turned to John and said "nice to have met you Jason!"

Secret Santa gifts
The not so rude ones!