Culled wine and Christmas cheer

You know you are a veterinary student when you start changing words, unbeknownst to you, that reflect what you are studying.

Take, for example, the other night.  I attended a Christmas party at church where someone brought home-made mulled wine.  If you are a true follower (and I hope you are), you know that I discussed this particular evening.  Well, it just so happens that the editor-in-chief (ahem, that would be me) almost missed the fact that I wrote 'culled wine' and it almost made it to press.

For those of you that do not recognize this term, let me explain 'culled' for the layman.  If we are talking about dairy cows, when you say you are going to cull some of your cows, you are going to get 'rid' of them.  This is typically accomplished by euthanasia or slaughter. There are many reasons to cull, including: poor mothering, can no longer produce calves, abnormal teats (therefore is not a productive milker), mastitis, old age, etc. So, when writing about my evening, I wanted to share with everyone that I had had some culled wine. Yeah, that probably doesn't taste nearly as good as what I had.

This brings me to tonite.  I went out with some friends to the same 'At the World's End' pub I have previously written about.  And, I visited with the same Gray-hem at the store across the way. I popped my head, he had his back to me, and I said 'hiya...could you please tell me where the World's End is?'   He started mumbling about how disappointed I was going to be before he even turned around.  I mean, I WAS right across the street.  When he finally saw me, a huge grin came across his face.  I asked him if he remembered who I was (a stupid tourist over the summer asking where the pub was when I could throw a rock at it) and he smiled and said, 'why uv curs I dew. Yew rrrr da wun hew axed me last time'.  I took the crowd over to see him again after dinner and we got some more fabulous pictures.

I went to dinner with three classmates and a fiancee. That should be the name of a movie, or something.  It's the first time I met him and he is adorable. They make such a cute couple and she is so happy with him here. They leave for a whirlwind tour of Germany and other parts for the next 3 weeks, so I'm sad to see them go tomorrow.  I look forward to hanging out when they return in January.

It was pretty darn cold tonite. We went down to the German Market and had a blast. We drank some mulled wine (just called it 'culled' again first...)and played on a trampoline.  Many, many belly laughs were had and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.  Downtown has some lovely decorations and I am getting in the Christmas spirit.

Tomorrow will be bittersweet. I will be wishing many of my classmates a Merry Christmas and at the same time, saying good bye to some new friends for a bit.

Merry Christmas to everyone and Safe Travels!

Over-N-Out

Friday Night B-Bday Bash

So, last Friday a group of us went out to celebrate a student's birthday.  She is the first person I met from our class back in August on our cruise over on the Queen Mary 2.  She's a Canadian (we try not and hold that against her) and quite funny without trying to be.  C does not drink alcohol really (or coffee or tea, for that matter!), so this was a fun night to buy her drinks since she felt obliged to drink them.

We started at 'The World's End', by request of birthday girl.  It has some historical significance, but I can't remember what it is, so I will not go into it.  Something about being at the gates to the entrance of the city hundreds of years ago.  Not sure if this is true or not, or if I've just made that up. 

As I was trying to find this place (address is 4 High Street), I wandered down the Royal Mile street becaust that is where I should have turned, but it said Royal Mile and not High Street.  So, I popped my head into a souvenir shop and met 'Gray-hem', the lovely Scotsman with a wicked sense of humor.  This is him with Cristina after we left World's End.  He called all of us Americans 'little diseases', among other things. Ahhh, you gotta love the Scottish.

I simply asked him where High Street might be.  He immediately smiled and in a very thick accent said, 'What's yerrr name dear?'  I tell him.  He said, 'Welll, that splains pert uv it'. 'Where rrrrr ya go-in?'  A place called, 'World's End', I reply.  Have you heard of it?  He puts his arm around me and says, 'oh dearrrr, rrrrr you goin-to-be a pisssssst eff it yer self now.'  Oh boy, I think, I've really made an error and am no where near where I need to be.  Gray-hem, arm still around me, proceeds to shuffle me outside.  'Rrrrrrrr ya reddy fer this wun dear??'  Here we go.  Sure, I say.  'Itssss-a-right overrrr therrrrre.  I can see how-ya mustiv missst it.'  He, of course, is pointing directly across the street.  To my defense, I did not know that a High Street in a town simply referred to the main street which is the Royal Mile in Edinburgh.  Sheepishly, I make my way across the street to meet my friends. 

This is our group as we sat down for dinner.  C wanted fish and chips (french fries) and boy was it amazing. 

We met some Germans there and they left to go watch some game and came back within 5 minutes.  Yes, we ARE that much fun.

I managed to commit a huge party foul and spilled a brand new, beautiful pint of Tenemet's beer.  I was trying to hand my camera to someone and off the table my full glass went.  Fortunately, it landed in the corner without drenching anyone.  The waiter said it was surely the first time in 400 years someone has done that...I felt bad. 

We had a great time at the pub and finally went off to start our pub crawl.  On the way to the next pub, two college boys stopped us because they thought T was a famous American actor...Doogie Howzer anyone? They were so excited to meet him!

 Managed to find an old phone booth and the games began:

How many vet students can you fit in a phone booth?

We stopped at many pubs.  This was at Frank and Steins, which I liked.  Good mixture of bar, music and dancing.  Cheers!

We got down to the bottom of a pretty good hill and had to get back up to the Brass Monkey.  It was much easier to take a rickshaw than hoof it.  The poor guys pedaling them gave us 'that look' when we asked them to take us up the street.  They were both sweating when we got there and it was not too warm out that evening.

This was right before we decided we needed a rickshaw.  Birthday girl was pooped.

That is the end of my story with pictures.  We all parted ways after Brass Monkey.  Three of us woke up with sore throats the next morning (that was a week ago tomorrow) and I have gotten progressively worse.  I still have a sore throat and a bad chest cold.  I signed up for my free health care today with NHS and picked a GP down the street.  I have an appointment for Monday afternoon just in case I am not feeling better.

It's now Friday night after a reallllly long week.  I had full days everyday except Wednesday and I'm feeling it.  I also had my floors sanded Tuesday and Wednesday to add to the chaos, noise and sinus issues (lots-o-dust).  Next week is a piece of cake schedule-wise compared to this one and I am so looking forward to it.

Right now, I'm going to head to the couch and put my feet up for a few minutes.  I need to attempt to study tonight, as I'm feeling way behind the curve.

Over-N-Out