Snowbrawl!

ITS WINTER!

It's literally been years since I've had snow to deal with on jut a regular day ie not just before christmas in Michigan. I slipped and slid and tromped my way to lecture yesterday and it rocked...what rocked more was running into all my flatmates on my way home. They were sledding down the hill next to our building on plastic bags.

I love my flatmates.

From left: Kaia, Me, Emanuele, Martin, Kristine, Sarah

So it's been pretty much snowing non-stop since last Friday and since Dundee doesn't usually get what little snow they accustomed to until at least January this meant the city was completely unprepared so we didn't have school Monday. Which rocked. Especially since I had already rolled over and skipped my first class by the time I realized it was actually cancelled.

I blame the beer chicken we had Sunday.

But I should probably start at the beginning.

The weekend started out right on Friday with Danika's birthday. We went to Laings and had a round while she opened her gifts ( I got her a gag gift of the cheapest cider I could find...I ended up getting it mostly because the jug it was in looked like something Pa Clampett would carry around).  It's possible that I lamed out and went home when they moved on to a club (...but my knee hurts and I don't really think dancing would help it improve, and yes I'm whining on my blog...isn't that what they're for?).

The next morning Robin, Martin, Emanuele and I hang out  (the rest of the girls were in London) and what am I going to do when I don't have an Italian handing me an espresso shot, unasked, as soon as I walk into the kitchen in the morning? It pretty much turns into a lazy day where nothing much gets done and there's not enough snow on the ground for it to be fun yet. The four of us make plans to go to St Andrews the following day for St Andrew's day

That night I get very little sleep because I'm too fascinated with the lightning blizzard that's going on.
Actual lightning,during a blizzard.
Mind=Blown

When I wake up at noon (overslept) Robin is knocking on the door with pancake ingredients and even though there's only a few inches (5?) the city hasn't even thought about cleaning it up yet so we stay home and eat breakfast for a couple hours. So no St. Andrews but we make our own fun. Our pancakes get inventive and the pancake cheesy taco is born (and it was freaking delicious so shuddup).

Later on we decide to make up an expedition to Tesco. And it is an expedition. We have two hiking packs several grocery bags and we are all bundled up as best we can manage with our limited wardrobes to brave the snow storm going on outside. I remember quickly how not waterproof my hiking boots are.

...but Robin and I really want to try making beer chicken so we persevere. And I somehow end up pushing the cart that they boys have lain their wet snow gear all over and Tesco employees everywhere have a new reason to quietly mock the crazy American girl. Robin and I attempt an organized shopping trip while the boys run around like five-year-olds in a candy store and show up every couple minutes to gleefully dump more and more random purchases into the cart and find beer (which, admittedly, we need, for beer chicken).

Then Martin shows up, takes the 12 pack he's already put in the cart out and replaces it with a 24 pack of 24 oz-ers. "it's cheaper," he says and to my rather dubious look he replied, "don't worry I will carry it, no problem"

Turns out it really isn't.

We just look like Sherpas on our decidedly wetter slog home.

There is also, possibly, a short snow ball fight.

Followed by and amazing meal that I think Robin and I did pretty damn well on for throwing it together with no more plan than "Let's try beer-chicken"

And Dundee Cake for Dessert

Monday was the snowday so we obviously completely wasted it...don't argue it's what you're supposed to do.

Tuesday I had to turn in some history papers and when I showed up to my one lecture not even the lecturer was there so I left. On the way home is where this post started...with a snow brawl. I ran into my Flatmates and was immediately attacked by Emanuele. No worries, I won.

Martin took pictures but they aren't embedding properly so here.

And then,andthenandthenandthen....we made Christmas cookies on Tuesday!

It was super fun, all of the flatmates, Robin, Danika and Mathias (Martin's french co-worker) were there. Luckily Robbin and Danika volunteered their oven since ours didn't work the morning after beer chicken (seriously I didn't break it...and mom's catching on fire this summer wasn't my fault either!)

Turns out Mathias is a very talented cookie cutter (we were freehanding it with dull knives) and made a Pacman with a tiny bit of leftover dough on a whim then followed it up with ghost, on request. Then I had to mention stop motion. So we did it.

And since my computer doesn't support the movie maker on picassa I'll just have to show you the first frame of Cookie Pacman...i'll try to put it up in a slideshow after I post this.

And we hung some of the gingerbreads for decoration.

So yeah it's been a pretty awesome snow storm.