Tis The Season To Be Jolly! Yeah, if you have someone to celebrate with!

Christmas is coming. It's just round the corner. It's creeping slowly, and time doesn't give much opportunity for me to ignore it. You see, it's not that I don't like Christmas. I do, even though I don't celebrate Christmas. Well, that's somewhat a lie. If to celebrate you mean to go to other people's houses eating chocolates, candies and getting money, why yes, I do celebrate Christmas. If to celebrate you mean I have to believe in Santa Claus and his Missus and his creepy looking elves [they somehow look like child molesters to me -- you see, they are fooling us all. They disguise themselves as Santa's helpers and be cute and green and all, and because of some genetic disorder they have small statures to further give the illusion that they ARE in fact kids, they can easily mingle with the children and before you know it, they have already"presented" their "PRESENT" to your kids -- well, that's just my theory & coming from me who once believed (maybe still believes) that Harry Potter is REAL and that I am actually a WIZARD, you can tell that the theory is a bit faux...I'm yet to receive THE letter from Hogwarts. Sigh], then I can say that I don't celebrate Christmas. No, no. Not with those elves!

Celebration is done quite excessively here in Thessaloniki. You might recall my mentioning the giant ass christmas tree in one of the previous posts. Not content with only a GIANT christmas tree, the mayor (or whoever that runs this place) decided that a giant ass SHIP is needed to complement the tree. Uh huh. A GIANT SHIP - complete with ever so bright lights, just like the ones used to decorate the tree.

And you might think "Surely there cannot be something more. I mean, not unless they want to decorate the whole CITY with too-bright-almost-blinding lights right?". You're right. They don't have giant reindeers or elves or anything like that. They do have however the power to control the radio stations. O yes. You forgot about that! You see, they (by they I mean the Mayor and his loyal confidants) know I don't understand Greek. Since most of the tv programs only offer Greek-speaking shows (well, yes they have Braveheart (uh huh, can you imagine, BRAVEHEART!) and The O.C, old episodes mind you - earthquake hits, remember that), I have no choice but to listen to the radio. As a direct consequence of constant radio-listening, let's just say that I am close to remembering the WHOLE words of "Last Christmas" by WHAM. Uh huh. Wham the band. Yes, yes, the one where George Michael was a member. Oh no. he's not in it anymore. Why yes, thank you for noticing that it was freaking 1000 YEARS AGO! But I love that song. It also helps if your housemate turns up the volume EVERYTIME the song plays. So shutup, move on and sing along......

Last Christmas, I gave you my heart...The very next day, you gave it away...Lalala

My supervisor just told me that I'll be having 5 days off (well, not exactly - 2 of them are in the weekends) for Christmas. I still don't know what I'll be doing. Everyone is going away. I'll be left alone. Meh. England looks like a good option. Visa kills the option. 'Expeliarmus', I said to the visa, as I point my wand to it, fully knowing that Visa is the equivalent of Voldermot who constantly tries to ruin my HOLIDAY PLANS!!!

Erasmus* threw a christmas party last Friday night. Having people from all around Europe/Asia (cos Turkey is partly Asia. You see, I do know my Geography), one of the highlights was the let's-sing-christmas-songs-in-our-national-language event. Although I was dissapointed that Last Christmas by Wham was not the "it" song of the night (I could have gone on the stage and started singing, but I a: was not dressed as an elf, or a reindeer, or Mrs. Clause b: am not an Erasmus member and c: didn't have time to translate the words into Malay - it would have been perfect otherwise), I was entertained by the the people who did sing in their own language. I find the French to be most interesting (maybe I'm biased cos I find anything French related to be super cute. Don't judge me). The Turks were not that bad too. And then, as the highlight of the highlight, the Greek traditional Dance. O yes, you can't forget that. I would like to point out here that if a dance requires you to jump like, I dunno, 1000 feet above the ground and to be VERY VERY precise with your steps that gradually get harder and FASTER with the music, you might want to rethink wearing those VERY VERY high heels. Seriously woman, what were you thinking? Have you forgotten that Mr. Gravity isn't fond of high heels? No, no. They make him angry and when he's angry, he takes you down. Hard. But, the highlight of the highlight of the highlight was the PARTY. Somebody even took a random pix of me and her because she thought I was cute (Whilst I'm not denying that I'm cute, the reason of her taking my photo is still unclear. The most logical explanation at that point of time was because I'm cute. Come to think about it, it IS the ONLY logical explanation. What else could it be?). Good music + Good crowd = Good fun. That's the law of Mr. Fun for you, Mr. Gravity! ...Is that Last Christmas playing?

Then we (Surprise, I wasn't alone. In fact, I was with 5 other people. Thought you might want to know) went to this electro indie club - It's Only. Before you make any judgment of me being a party animal, it's only wise for you to know that this was a Greenpeace party. Yes THE Greenpeace. The one that saves whales and cute lil baby seals and stuff. They even showed cute lil baby seals in the club, not literally. And that my friends, how I officially found my favouritest club in all Thessaloniki. That is until I find another one that's better, which got me thinking. Is there any Club somewhere in or near Hogwarts? Why don't Harry, Hermoine and Ron go to this Club? Is it in the forbidden forest? Are dementors the bouncers or the bartenders? It's not like just because you're a wizard, you're not allowed to have fun, right? I mean, I'm a living proof. Anyways, the dj played all the songs that I liked - The Killers, Strokes, New Order. ...Still no sign of Last Christmas.

Then there was Martin's last dinner on Saturday night. Then there was me falling off the steps. Then there was me injuring not only my left wrist, but also my left foot. Then there was martin's going away party in my flat (yes, the one that has the stinky toilet which this morning I found a freaking unidentified black BUG crawling in the bathtub while I was in a hurry to take a shower. I have successfully killed it by hosing it down the drain and never to be seen again. Urm, well, maybe). Then there was us crashing (no, no not breaking...crashing is more appropriate) 2 BLOODY BIG MIRRORS. O yes, not content with only 1, we crashed 2. T.W.O. I will explain in the next blog on how we crashed the mirrors and why on hell do we have more than 1 BIG mirror in the flat. WHAM (yes, finally Last Christmas) was kind enough to put me to sleep. So did Cyndi Lauper and Mel-C from the Spice Girls (zig a zag ah)....Late again for work...

C'mon Everybody. Hit it.

Last Christmas, I gave you my heart...The very next day you gave it away...

this year, t save me from tears...I'll give it to someone SPECYYYYEEAAL...

p/s: I'll post more pixs on the next blog. I didnt have time to transfer the photos into my USB this morning when I found out that I was LATE.

*Erasmus is kinda like an exchange student program/org.