Click here for pictures from New Years:
So here we are: Sunny Scotland in all its glory. Well, actually, Scotland is rarely remembered for its weather, but rather the drinking... And we came on the biggest drinking day of the year! Scotland takes it's New Years celebration VERY seriously. In fact I think all the regular drinking throughout the year here is simply practice for New Years!
The plan was to go out to the Glasgow city-center where 150,000 of our closest drinking buddies were hanging out. There were stages set up for different music tastes. In the end though, Jennifer, Chas, Kelly and I went to a rather yuppie bar called The Strata. As we walked in (11pm or so) the place was PACKED... Luckily Jennifer knew the manager and we got to go up to the private area that overlooked the rest of the bar. We had lots to drink (in Kelly and Jennifer's case, far too much!) and partied the night away. Did all the regular Scottish New Years songs with the rest of the bar (national anthem, auld lang sang (written by a Scot) etc..). A fabulous time. At the 'Bells' Kelly tried to make it a habit to kiss everyone she came in contact with. Luckily this is tradition over here so she didn't earn herself too bad of a reputation (but the photographs soon to be on this site will let you make up your own mind!)
On the walk home Kelly and Jennifer made it a habit to kiss the ground in some wierd ritualistic drunken fashion. Kelly even has a neat battle scar from the walk home. Gotta admit, walking along a perfectly flat, level and well lit road can be hazardous?!?! By this point we had run out of film so I can't embarass her too much. The highlight for me (apart from basically carrying Jennifer and/or Kelly for 2 hours on the 'walk' home) was finding a £20 note on the ground. I think it's God's way of rewarding me for putting up with such female abuse!
Tomorrow we will go and try and do some toursity things around Glasgow. It's terribly cold just now though, so it might be a whirlwind tour! On Thursday we're driving back down to London with my mum (an 8 hour drive). Will spent a day touring London and then in the evening we're going to see 'Les Miserables' in London's famous West End. Surely followed by some frantic repacking of our backbacks for the flight the following day!
We're getting pretty excited that the trip is about to really get underway. The Australia
will be our first destination where we're on our own and having to fend for ourselves. I doubt that we can get ourselves into much trouble while we're lazing on beaches. With Kelly you never know what might happen next since she has an amazing ability to knock things over! So if you're sitting at work and you hear that the Leaning Tower of Pisa has collapsed, it seems likely that Kel was nearby! Off to bed now.