Feuerzangenbowle!

The holidays are now officially upon us. Not much has happened this week, so I'm afraid this will be a rather short update. The weather is now officially freezing. We have not had any snow yet, but people are starting to wish for it as it's definitely in the air.

This week has mostly consisted of massive amounts of work, trying to get ready for the holidays. Panic has gripped the department for that reason exactly and people are scrambling to get as much done as possible before Christmas and Hogmanay celebrations commence. On Wednesday I managed to escape for some curry with folks, which was lovely. It was the usual mention of curry at coffee, leading to a massive round of sarcastic, Christmas themed emails about the curry angel leading it's people to feast. The food was fantastic (as usual) and our Mr India was happy to see us follow the star in the sky, leading us to mass amounts of Chicken Tikka and bid us tidings of spiced onions. This was, of course, followed up by some Laphroaig at the usual Tennent's.

Thursday, escape was not so lucky as I finally had to convince myself to do some real, mass amounts of work. My friend who is finishing her thesis stayed late as well and we had dinner in the common room and left to walk back together at 9:30 that night. A full 13 hour day in the office. I did get lots accomplished in the way of work. My programs are running successfully, leading to much silent cheering and happy dances at my desk. My supervisor seems pleased with my progress and applications for funding in January should be very strong. Hopefully, this will also mean that I get an internal publication done by the end of the holidays.

On Friday, we had a Feuerzangenbowle (fire-sugar-drink) party at a friend from Germany's house. Before the party, however, we rushed out of the department at 5pm sharp to watch the World Cup Draw at the Common Rooms. This was to find out who would be playing whom and when during the summer. Lot's of people were there watching it and they had it on the big screen. After they did this, a few of us headed to the party. Since it is St Nicholas/Sinter Klaus weekend, the Germans, Swedes, Dutch, etc celebrate with mulled wine and various Christmas goodies. I learned how to make proper mulled wine, by cooking wine on the stove, with apples and spices, then ladling flaming sugar and rum slowly into the mixture. It was super warm and cozy and a great party. They also had gingerbread and baked apples for everyone.

The next day, the mulled wine had left me with (surprise surprise) a massive headache. For my future reference, there actually is alcohol in mulled wine and it cannot be consumed like apple cider. Just a personal note. I was meeting a friend down in the city centre to do some Christmas shopping. We met up, went our separate ways and thankfully, since she hates shopping as much as I do, we met up two hours later and went for tapas at a Mediterranean bistro in town; mostly to pamper ourselves after spending so much money and braving the crowds. I also was calmed by the presence of Clanadonia playing on Buchanan St again. Oh, how I love watching big, hairy men in kilts bang on drums. I love it, I do. That made the shopping a little better, and I still love Glaswegians. It was very Christmassy on Buchanan St and, despite the crowds, it was still fun.
After shopping, I ran back home and dropped off everything before running out again to a friend's house for dinner and a Star Trek marathon. This girl has been a Star Trek fan for years and wanted to watch them with someone. It was fantastic. Her love for McCoy and my love for Spock led to some brilliant episodes and some really great laughs.

Today was devoted to Christmas cards and cleaning. As I am leaving in just about 9 days, I figured I really should clean up the place. Thankfully, it looks great now and I can pretty much just focus on work next week (so it will be even more boring in a week) before leaving for the good ol' US of A. Til next time! Ta ra!