: : The 12 Brett's of Christmas : :
Thursday, December 23, 2004
It snowed last week and a little last night and the forecast is good for Saturday to be having my first white Christmas. It will be my second with Laura. Tonight will be my third trip to Barfusserplatz to walk around the Christmas markets - and with that my fourth time drinking vin chaud, or as its called here, Gluhwein, in the last 3 weeks. Laura will have a go at making it for Christmas Eve dinner. With appetizers, soup, main, dessert and cheese, we will be greedily devouring five courses during the dinner.
On the menu is Roast Chicken, (at least I hope it's a chicken - my German is really awful and the picture on the wrapping looks like a Rooster. So for correctness, lets say we are having Roast Rooster (Red Rooster for the WA kiddies), herb butter potatoes, julienne carrots and fine beans. Following this, an awesome fromage platter delivered this morning by my French buddy Bertrand. The father of French gastronomie, Brillat-Savarin said that, "A meal without cheese is like a beautiful woman with only one eye." And with 5 cheeses to choose from and Raclette for Lunch on Sunday, we will be eating six cheeses over the weekend.
Twice trollied (drunk) with the team from work, once at a Global Marketing Summit, and then again two weeks later at our Xmas work dinner; plus drinking beer towers with Teo, beers with Dinner at Brett & Jolene's, a nasty night of vodka and absent room mate bonding, last Friday bender at Paddy's and some swanky new joint in the middle of town, and the combined affects of the Santa Xmas party in the work cafeteria and the AIESEC Xmas dinner mean that I have been drunk seven times in the last few weeks - not bad seeing as I am planning on giving up drinking (the first of many not maintained new years resolutions I am sure).
Eight is the number of DVDs I plan to watch between now and Sunday, as after months of Turner Classic Movies (more recently including, North by Northwest, Singing in The Rain and Ryan's Daughter) and the cartoon network (admittedly, I am hooked on X-men Evolution and Samurai Jack) I am looking forward to some English programming of my own.
Nine is the number of presents I have bought for Laura, the most embarrassing purchasing story I will come back with after Christmas day, after the surprise of it all - I hate surprises when they are happening to me, but I love to surprise others!
In about ten minutes I am heading home, albeit a little bit early but the hallways at work here are empty - everyone is gone home already.
Eleven franc left in my pocket at the moment until pay day (well 11.85CHF) - between going mad shopping for presents, buying food and decorations and with the cold weather taking the tram to work every day now, I am broke. Side note - after 9 months here I found out the other day that it is possible to get an all day ticket for the tram, not just single journeys. AIESECers everywhere, please assume nothing for the knowledge of your trainees - tell them everything no matter how trivial. A few months ago, I found out that a portion of the 300 bucks a month I have to pay in medical insurance can actually be claimed back from the local govt. You get back paid from 3 months when you send the form, that means quite a few months of lost money for me :-(
Finally, I spend the next few weeks trying to figure out what I do over the next twelve months! Look forward to catching up with old faces and new friends.
Merry Christmas to all, and have a hell of a new year, wherever you are in the world.
12/23/2004 11:22:00 AM :: 
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1 Comments:
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Merry Christmas babe!!!
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Have a wonderful holiday and give my hugs to Laura!
Love Mazzy xxx
Group Human Resources, at 6:32 PM
