the real Christmas post!

So..let's start from Christmas Eve shall we? :)

My memory's a little foggy coz the days seemed to be a bit jumbled up in my mind right now.. but if i remember correctly i woke up really late.. hmm...

The uni was nice enough to give us a room in one of the self-catering halls so we have a kitchen to cook in and it has a TV in it!! it's actually one of those rooms that guests stay in so i let Chin Li have that room..So on Christmas Eve i got up, got ready and walked over to where Chin Li was staying..
Mum told me to try to be available to skype so i could wish my aunt a happy birthday...

so the kitchen.. we were given very little tools and very lousy tools too.. the frying pan was badly scratched, little pot was..burnt inside? and there was a..i think it's a slow cooker but we later thought it belonged to the chinese who used that kitchen too...
the chinese were quite friendly.. they let us use their very good knife..

anyways.. dinner that night was to be spaghetti aglio olio which i've been craving for coz we NEVER get spaghetti at the cafeteria.. and we were gonna pan fry salmon fillets..the thought of it made me so happy..

then we used the slow cooker to boil water to cook our spaghetti... (we really didn't think it was a slow cooker then and we couldn't use the pot coz it was so black inside.....) the water took SO LONG to boil... must've been an hour plus... i decided to try and scrub the pot and it was actually possible -.- ...

halfway scrubbing mum texted me so i left the scrubbing to Chin Li and went to skype :) ..

everyone was there.. they sounded like they were having a great time.. had a nice time chatting with them too <3 .. aunt told me she got an ice cream machine and she was gonna make me ice cream when i went back :D .. dad told me not to shop online so much (which i actually don't honestly!! yiishhh....) then he said something like "Eh, boxing day you go and buy some stuff for yourself lah.. those heavily discounted stuff go and buy!!" and from the back i could hear "buy what you need......" then only dad "ya ya ... just buy what you need...." XD ..

after our conversation i went back to the kitchen and the water still hadn't boiled!! in the end we chucked the spaghetti in even though the water hadn't exactly come to a full boil.. which resulted in an awfully textured spaghetti -.- ..

it really was quite depressing.. craving for that taste, that texture for so long, thinking you COULD finally taste it but no..not today.. :( .. all this on Christmas Eve!! :( salmon tasted good though thankfully..

we then went to the Chaplaincy for the 7.30pm Christmas eve service... and that made me feel better :) ..

Next, Christmas Day lunch..

The chaplaincy organised a 1pm lunch so we decided to go... It was nice.. food was good..Chin Li and i sat at a table with 4 Nigerian guys.. they were friendly and all.. chit chatted while eating.. it wasn't like Christmas back home at all but it was really nice and it did feel like Christmas :)

though one of the people we ate with took a photo of me with his phone.. sure, he asked me to look at the camera BUT what normal person would take a picture of someone they just met a few minutes ago?!?! not a photo together but a photo of... anyways.. i thought maybe it was their culture or something... but creepy nonetheless..

after the meal when we decided to go back Chin Li thought we should say bye to the people we ate with.. it was courtesy and i agreed that we probably should say bye.. and to our surprise, 2 of those guys decided to find out where my hall was and wanted to accompany us.......

so they followed to my hall.. one of them didn't want to come in but the other one (the one that took photo with his phone in fact) came in even after Chin Li subtly said bye at the door...when he asked for my extension i conveniently forgot and i think only then did he get the message and decided to go.. though he didn't really buy it that i forgot my extension i think... but who cares! they just ruined my Christmas for me.. they didn't exactly ruin the whole thing lah.. but it sucked to have to meet creepy people on Christmas day... i'm not a racist and i don't agree when people generalise and say Nigerians are dangerous and stuff but really, these people didn't do their people any favours by behaving that way..

and you may think i'm paranoid and stuff but i wouldn't have been so worried if the hall hadn't been deserted.. anything could've happened and nobody would've been there to hear or see or help.. but thankfully nothing happened...

overall this year.. Christmas didn't exactly feel like Christmas.. even when Christmas was approaching i couldn't really feel it.. and i kinda forgot to wish people Merry Christmas :/ ...

anyways, i hope everyone else had a great Christmas :) .. 2011 is coming soon and i haven't even posted about the Durham-York-London trip :P ...

-llen-