(Nearly White) Christmas & Hogmanay New Year

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HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!

Hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year.

We had a nice xmas with my family here and had some friends over from London for Hogmanay Festival here in Edinburgh for NYE. Probably the most sober NYE I have had in many years!! Yes - believe it!! The rain, snow & wind held off enough for Hogmanay to go ahead which was good. It had to be done but not something I would do every year. We had a nice Mexican dinner, headed through the festival and watched the fireworks ( which were slightly disappointing, no way near as good as the Royal Bank of Scotland sponsored ones they had on a while ago, which were the best I,ve ever seen), but anyhoo, after the fireworks and getting through the street in the search of scottish boy pashes for Karen, we fought the crowds in the crush and got to the club we had tickets to, the line hadn’t moved after half an hour so we gave that the flick and ended up at a real dodgy Scottish pub dancing away. Note to self… kiwi Karen can’t hold her drink!!!

We also made a trip out to Edinburgh Zoo for a day which was absolutely freezing but was actually quite good. Great tiger enclosures - even saw some koala bears and they had giant penguins!! Polar bears were sleeping and sea lion was on its way to the zoo from somewhere else %-( We had also been to a great Mongolian restuaratn one night where you practically make up your own dish in a bowl from ingredients they have spread out and you watch them cook it on a bbq in front of you. They have some suggested recipes. We were quite adventurous and tried, zebra, crocodile, wild boar, rabbit & the list goes on!!

I was not feeling great last week and was home sick with a cold - opened the curtains and to my surprise it was snowing!! Only missed our white xmas by a week! Was very surreal and exciting to see real heavy snow and it pretty much snowed all day. As i,ve been writing this it has also started to snow here today aswell - only light though!! This pass weekend it was my little cousins birthday and we went bowling and go-karting which was fun.

So now the festive season is over it’s head down for me - getting stuck into studying for my trip leader training trip starting in April. I,ve been stressing out a little, okay well maybe a lot. Good thing it’s miserable outside, easier to stay inside and study - bring on the European summer!!! Kate has less than 4 weeks left until she flys back to the aussie sunshine (just a little jealous)! She is heading to Morocco with kiwi Aimee for a few days and I,m very tempted to go but really need to save my pennies and maybe fit another trip in with a friend who flys over a couple of days after Kate leaves.

Anyhoo, new pics attached - hope everyone is well xoxox

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