Spending Christmas in Granada was fun but very untraditional, I was kinda missing the family atmosphere, but luckily I was headed to Glasgow to spend time with some family to ring in the new year! I could only imagine what I was getting myself into.
The hostel was freaking freezing, I didn't both going down to ask for an extra blanket since I was only going to be sleeping for 3 or 4 hours anyways, I only actually slept for maybe an hour or two but ohwell, my alarm went off at 20 after 4 and I dragged myself outta bed and headed for the airport. I was taking Ryan Air, definitely a bit of a sketchy airline but it was cheap so whatever, got my boarding pass stuff dealt with and then just took a nap while waiting for my gate to be posted. We ended up having to go through border control which kind of surprised me since Scotland is part of the EU, normally when you travel within the EU you don't have to go through anything like that. Kinda freaked me out since I'm still waiting for my residency card to be processed and my visa expired dec. 31. And of course I am not an EU citizen I had to stop at border control, answer questions about my visit, and fill out a little form thing, everyone from the EU just flashed their passports and walked through, lucky jerks.
There was a family one my flight with 4 children all under the age of 6, kill me now right? There was also a couple other families with young children too, so I was dreading the flight. Fortunately though, Ryan Air does not have assigned seating, nor was the plane very full so I boarded through the back door of the plan and made sure I sat nowhere near the children. I ended up sitting in a row with this Scottish woman, she was probably around her mid to late 30's, she had been working in Spain the last 10 years on a farm and finally decided it was time to pack up and go back to Glasgow, to start a new chapter of her life. She was definitely really interesting to talk to which was nice, you don't often get good companions on flights, well I don't at least. Eventually we both passed out for awhile, it was a very early flight after all, although stupid Ryan Air felt no need to turn the lights off.. Anyways, we surprisingly got into Glasgow 25minutes early, it was around 9am but the sky still looked about as dark as when we had left Malaga, welcome to Scotland eh?
The woman was so generous and bought me some Starbucks coffee when we got into the airport, I was waiting for my family to come pick me up and she had no where better to be since she couldn't get into her hotel for another hour or so. Eventually my aunt and cousin Kat showed up, Kat was not in great shape though aha hangover central. The airport I landed in was a little bit outside of Glasgow so I got to see lots of beautiful countryside on the drive to my aunt's house. Lots of beautiful rolling hills and old rustic houses, lots of sheep too aha. It was a pretty grey and cloudy day, the sky only got marginally lighter by the time we arrived at the house. They live in a cute little apartment on the South side of Glasgow, it was very comfy and warm, thank god. Since I was tired from the early flight and my cousin was feeling the hangover pretty bad, we spent the majority of the day just lounging in the living room and watching re-runs of Friends, Big Bang Theory, and Two and a Half Men. Was definitely the nicest start to the trip.
The following day we went for a tour with of the Celtic Football Stadium, I don't watch much of the European Football League but it was a fun touristy thing to do and I know how into it my family is so I figured why not? I went with It actually was a pretty interesting tour, learned a lot Irish and Scottish history and the origins of the football teams. I went with Kat and her parents and a few other male cousins so it was pretty entertaining.
That night the entire family went out for dinner, there was about 12 of us or so, it was kinda chaotic. We ended up at this interesting Italian/Scottish restaurant right near my other aunt C's house in the West end of Glasgow, our reservation wasn't until 7 and we were done the tour at the Celtic stadium by 5 so we all ended up at aunt C's house for awhile before dinner, and of course they cracked open the fizzy aka champagne, or some version thereof. Had a couple glasses of that -not really by choice- and then headed for the restaurant, the food was pretty good, it was an odd mixture of hamburgers and pasta dishes on the table along with appetizers like calamari and bruschetta, and of course 2..or 3.. bottles of wine..at our end of the table. The Scots really do like to drink.
Next day was New Years Eve or as they call it in Scotland, Hogmanay! My uncle belongs to a country club type thing, well really it's a bowling and tennis club, and they were holding a big Hogmanay event in their banquet hall and my uncle bought tickets for the 4 of us so that's where I spent my Hogmanay. It was a pretty entertaining night to say the least, there was maybe 15-20 or so people around my age and the rest were all probably 40+, so you can only imagine how entertaining it was being in a room full of mostly older, drunken scots. There was dancing and karaoke singing, and then at midnight they broke into Old Lang Syne and some other traditional new years/scottish songs, along with some traditional scottish dances, so entertaining! It was also an open bar which did/didn't really help the whole situation. The party started to wind down around 3 so we left around then, we had another party the following day anyways at aunt C's.
Being mildly hungover the next morning, we had a pretty slow morning, but eventually had to get ourselves in gear because we were going over to my uncle's mom's place (I guess that makes her something like my great aunt? They're kinda distantly related family so ya) for late lunch/early dinner, whatever you want to call it. It was a little odd for me, kinda like visiting your grandparents that you rarely every see or don't really have anything to talk about with. It was nice though, honestly just having that kind of family time was so comforting and relaxing since I didn't really get anything like that at christmas time. After having lunch/dinner and some tea and shortbread, we headed over to aunt C's house for the big new years day party. It was definitely a little overwhelming for me, a large party of Scottish people that were all relatives or family friends, most of whom I was meeting for the first time. It was a fun party though, it was a potluck so there was a ton of delicious food there and my family is definitely a little crazy, in the best of ways, around midnight they busted out the guitars and began something like an open mike night, seems to be a big tradition for new years day parties at aunt C's. My aunt was also trying to give my drink a 'wee top up' about every 20 minutes, I'm not actually sure how much wine/champagne/beer/whatever else I drank that night. If nothing else, I have improved my Scottish accent quite a lot :D aha. It's grrreat. We stayed there maybe a little too late since I had an early flight the next morning, but it was worth it..mostly.
The hangover definitely wasn't fun, but I made my 9:30am flight back to Malaga in one piece. Lots of sleeping on transportation and aspirin aha. To be honest I was pretty sad about leaving, I would have loved to stay there a bit longer but I had booked my tickets like a month or so in advance and that's just how it worked out.
Coming back to Granada on the 2nd of Jan there definitely wasn't many people around, I got back around mid afternoon and then just spent the rest of the day at home unpacking and organizing stuff for my up coming trip. The following day though my friend Ty wanted to meet up for tapas because his brother was part of the new CEA group of Americans who will be here for the 2nd semester so I ended up going out with a biggish group of Americans, mostly blonde but from different parts of the states, not all people from cali, thank god. Me and Ty showed them around to a few different areas and bars in Granada, we went all over the city and I winded up quite a bit drunker than intended. Ahwell. Eventually we ended up at Hannigan's which was nice since it was pretty close to my place, they actually turned out to be a pretty decent crowd, well some of them anyways. It was karaoke night at Hanni's, that was definitely pretty entertaining, there was this group of germans who were loving it, one dude was WAY too hyper tho, I'm sure he was on Something, he was dancing and jumping around like no other. He was a little too happy if you know what I mean. I decided which Americans I liked the best based on their music taste and ability to appreciate karaoke aha. Was a fun night.
The following day my friend Tanya was hosting some couchsurfers so we went grocery shopping and then met up with them. They were a couple girls from New York who have been traveling Europe for about 6 months, they were really kool and definitely had some interesting stories. We showed them around a bit of Granada and then of course showed them the Granada life style by tapa hopping, which then turned into free drinks and club hopping, we eventually ended up at Camborio up in the Albyzin, was a pretty interesting night, fun though, I didn't get home till about 7am, but what else is new.
So needless to say, my break has definitely been a pretty interesting one so far. But the craziness is just beginning, Jan. 7th I'm leaving for Barcelona and that will be the beginning of my 3 week trip through Europe, so excited !
Dec. 28-Jan. 5
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