Happy New Year!

Hope you had a fantastic time on New Years. I spent it in Edinburgh with Chris, my friend Nita and her friend from Glasgow Linsey (a real Glaswegian). Can't say I talked to too many Scottish people while in Scotland this time! Edinburgh was filled with foreigners like me!

We had a great time. We stayed in a hostel in Leith, a supposedly dodgy part of Edinburgh but we found it quite nice. It is where the port is and is very pretty. I caught up with Katie and her boyf who are living in London who were up for New Years, and with Anna who I worked with in Canberra, both a the Walkabout pub which was a very Aussie place to be, and fun as by 4pm in the afternoon most people in there had been celebrating since midday for the Aussie new years!

For New Years celebration we went to the street party, which was awesome. We saw a band called Hard-fi, very fun, and a few others. The atmosphere was excellent, everyone was very happy to be there and there were the traditional new years wishes all round at midnight, along with some fun fireworks. After the street party ended at 1pm we went to a random house part (friend's of Linsey's) which seemed just like a night club, with a DJ set up in the lounge room. I danced for a few hours and then we got back to our hostel on a free bus (yey for free buses!).

Christmas was lovely as well. I spent it with Chris's family (Aunties and cousins) in Lancashire, which is right next to the Yorkshire Dales. We had a huge turkey on Christmas day, on top of a large three course Christmas pub meal with had the night before. Chris's little cousins got so many pressies! We also went for a few nice walks in the area. It was nice being out of a big city for a while and in the very pretty English country side.

Between Christmas and New Years is snowed in Newcastle! It was so awesome walking to work in crunching white snow. The layer of white made everything look so beautiful as well. The snow is all gone now, but I'm hoping it will snow again before winter is out.

Wishing you all the best for 2005.