happy christmas

christmas in queenstown is kind of a joke, or maybe americans are just a little too merry. either way, it didn't really feel like christmas. there were very few lights, very few decorations, almost no carols, no stores smelling like cinnamon and cloves. i guess this is just the wrong hemisphere for that kind of stuff.

i worked at fergburger on christmas eve. no one told me merry christmas and a lot of people seemed bitchier than usual. or maybe that was just me because i had to work on christmas eve. i finished work at ten that evening and headed around the corner to pog mahone's irish pub where i found all of my friends. then it felt like christmas. lots of drunk irish and english people, pints in hand, arms around eachother's shoulders, singing the one verse of "don't they know it's christmas-time" that they knew.

i took a cab home to wash the smell of fergburger off me. my flatmates were asleep and my "ho! ho! ho!" fell on deaf ears. i drank some cider by the light of the tree and then we all headed out to a party in arthur's point. it wasn't the most traditional way to celebrate christmas, but it was fun. there wasn't really any point in trying to make it feel like christmas at home. we all danced well into the next morning and watched the sun rise over the mountains and river.

christmas day i slept late and made tacos for the irish. i'm slowly learning that tacos are something you have to grow up with to be obsessed with. the irish were polite and said they enjoyed them, but it wasn't like tasting home for them. they can taste home anytime they want, there's potatoes and beer all around here.

christmas is about family and home, two things i don't currently have with me, so all us wanderers in queenstown did the best we could with what we had, but it wasn't really christmas for any of us. new years, though, i think we can handle that holiday.