It was very strange not being home for Christmas. I think this was the first year ever I haven't been home. Travis and I kept things pretty low key here. We had a pizza for dinner on Christmas Eve, then opened our pajamas. It is a Tufte tradition to open pajamas on Christmas Eve, and even though I am not at home, I didn't want to miss out.
On Christmas day, we woke up and opened presents in the morning. Travis's mom sent a lovely package full of presents, with collaboration from my mom and Travis's grandma. I'm pretty sure my mom made and filled stockings to send. They were great! I missed the orange Santa usually includes in my stocking, but they probably would not have travelled well. I got a lovely Pandora ring from my family, plus a cute owl plushie and owl PJs from Travis's. I also got a ton of good American candy! Travis's family also gave us our tickets to Tokyo as a Christmas gift, which was just lovely.
We had a nice dinner at a little restaurant last night. I'll have to ask Travis exactly what we had. It was a big, pancake like thing with kimchi, some battered meats and vegetables and a pretty good Korean rice wine.
I was able to get all of our pictures together from the trip today. We took a ton! I don't have my camera charger, I actually think I left it in MN, but Travis did a nice job documenting. He also has a really nice point and shoot camera with 12x zoom so we got some nice shots. Nothing on what Randi would have done, though!
My last days in Edinburgh were quite interesting. The MBA office threw us a wonderful Winter party on December 8, my last paper was due on December 10, then I left for Korea on December 13. I also had to somehow fit in holiday shopping as well. I think I missed the holiday shipping deadline, so apologies to friends and family at home. It should be there soon.
My phone was also stolen the night of the party, so I had to stop at the police station to file a report. Thanks to wonderful Google technology, I have a photo of the girl who took it, along with the GPS coordinates of where it was taken. I haven't heard much from the police yet, but hopefully they will be able to get it back.
I will do a proper post on Japan and Korea so far tomorrow. I have to get out and enjoy some of the Seoul sights right now.
I am missing everyone at home and at school, but am having a great time. I hope everyone had as wonderful of a holiday as I did!
Here are some photos of the Winter party and a few of our little Christmas:
Cassie and I playing with the party poppers
Daniele, Diego (my neighbor) and Kieran
Andrew, one of our programme managers
Travis wore his Christmas sweater to work on Christmas Eve
Our present pile! The little tree Travis got was overwhelmed.
With our tree
Trav opening his pajamas
Showing off my awesome pjs. I also had a Christmas sweater. :-)
1 comment:
This was our first Christmas without you and you were missed very much. You are right - I didn't know if the oranges in the stocking would travel well, or if it would be allowed to send fresh fruit. I look forward to seeing more pictures and hearing about your travels.
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