it's always strange to say, but yes indeed, it is 2006, and a merry welcome to all into the year. i hope your five-hours-later celebrations were fun and silly and universal. over here in edinburgh i had to work until about 10:30, and after my employers scooted us off into our new year celebrations with champagne and free food, i joined my great friend julia and her great friend erica to enter the famous revelries of the edinburgh hogmanay street party. to get in to the "zone" you had to have passes, which cost about 30 bucks each, but magically, as if they were currency, these passes started showing up everywhere in my life and i was in the possession of five total at some point. but i gave them away, to my boss and his girlfriend, and then of course to my companions, and we joined the herds, and boy do i mean herds, of funny drunk people who were talking new year antics with everyone and anyone and who broke out into spontaneous dancing when there was no accompanying music. at new year itself there was (picture to illustrate below) a lovely display of fireworks from edinburgh castle, the linking of arms and jumping in dancing circles, and happy new years in form of hugs, kisses and exclamations all around from people all over the world. i didn't even become claustrophobic in the massive throngs, instead i just laughed and pushed and was pushed. i am treating many of my phobias that way recently, which seems positive to me. the heights one, however, doesn't really have a laughing release.
anyway after the anticipated hour, julia, erica and i headed to julia's flat, drank some strange but sort of delicious foreign caramel alcohol and erica went to bed while julia and i stayed up until 3:30 talking. it was lowkey, and some would say lame considering the city's many club and party offerings, but i had a lovely time and didn't want it any other way. let's face it, i may in fact be lame but it's tiring to work a double and have been up since 5:45 am. and this morning, gloriously, because i for the first time in ages did not have to set an alarm to go accomplish some particular thing on my life agenda, i slept in until 2:45 and saw only 1 and a half hours of daylight.
but as for the new year and all of the requisite reflections and plansmakings such a thing brings, i am really looking forward to it. this is going to be a more intense semester for me, but in the best of ways, i think. i know what i want to do, i have better, more focused things to think about, i plan to be a generous friend and to really embrace the great things i have going over here, and i have a ton i am excited to accomplish for myself as a thinking and academic person. i have many hopes for things i can see and do in the city and in scotland, i am going to work less so i can have more fun and be more focused at the same time, and i'm happy to meet some new people and really cherish what i have been fostering. the direction of it all seems so much clearer now. and this occasion for reflection is all rather contrived, but i am happy for the artifice. it was due, anyway. i think i am feeling inspired by reading literature in new ways again, and this has brought some of this on, but really, why else do i do all of this? i am grateful.
and i wanted to say a few more things about copenhagen, rather than the mere list of time-spending activities. the experience was quite different than prague, because in prague you literally crossed this bridge and entered a world of such old timey quaint otherness that it didn't seem like a place for actual life and productivity and work and hardship and routine. copenhagen, on the other hand, was full of these pockets of buildings and streets that were little caricatures of the city and of the danish way of life, and it seemed like it would be a really fascinating place to live in and get to know, to have the time to discover and attach oneself to these little quintessential bits. but it also just seemed like another way of life to me, what i saw in copenhagen, which probably has a lot to do with staying with mandy and seeing her family and her friends and the way one gets around and does the things one does in life. but it was really rewarding, and i feel like i am continuing to develop the skill - a literary one, sometimes the entire point of it all - of imagining the lives of others, of imagining universes larger than the one in which i am the lead part.
and yeah, it was really cold, and you never exactly can forget about that, but it is satisfying to just endure it because you have more important things to do and see. it did make the absorption of the place a blurred experience, but that is all part of it i suppose.
tonight i am headed to julia's flat, where she and erica are awaiting my company with homemade pizza dinner and wine. tomorrow morning i have to work, but then i am off for about a week, and i have all the freedom in the world to pursue the things i wish to. i am going to go with julia to see the charles rennie mackintosh exhibit and the modern art museum here in edinburgh and then get sushi dinner at a nearby restaurant i want to try. i am going to read saul bellow's seize the day, maybe in coffeehouses with hot chocolates like i had been fantasizing about. my wonderful friend rachel is for real visiting me and will arrive in edinburgh on the evening of the 4th and be here until the 8th, and the two of us will bask in my lovely city and in our renewed ability to just sit down and have a real conversation with one another. during this time my new flatmate will arrive and the rest of the flat building will be repopulated with returning friends and new visiting students. then classes start on the 9th!
really, i am so ready. for now it is off to dinner. hope everyone is having a lovely first of the year, is taking care of themselves and being as safe and happy as can be.
until soon-
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