Christmas came early...
on Tara's Ethiopian Adventure (Ethiopia), 01/Sep/2010 12:48, 34 days ago
Whenever I go to Nancy's house it always reminds me of Christmas. ( I think this is probably because we celebrated such a fantastic Christmas there last year. ) This weekend was no exception. It was helped by the fact that it was really cold and rainy in Addis and as always it was dark before 7pm. It also felt like Christmas had come early as Nancy gave me first dibs on the clothes that she wasn't taking back to the UK. Nancy was clever and instead of just bringing 'travelling' clothes she actually brought clothes that look nice on...so for the first time since I've been in Ethiopia I actually felt nicely dressed! As it was Nancy's last weekend in Ethiopia we made the most of it by going to all our favourite places and trying out places she had been meaning to visit all year but hadn't got round to. As we tried out some delicious restaurants I was really feeling very festive and was in total denial about the reason for our extravagances. On Saturday we tried a very fancy Italian restaurant where one of the highlights was earl gray ice-cream- amazing! The highlight of Sunday was a trip to a local hot springs were they give the strangest massage experience. It starts with you sitting in a giant bath being hosed down by an extremely powerful hose under the water, this is then followed by a massage where they slap you and then rub the pain away repeatedly! It was totally bizarre and very hard to relax as each cubicle was only separated by a curtain. As I was sitting in the bath I became very aware that in the next cubicle was a man and that they really hadn't done a good job of pulling the curtain to! Although hardly relaxing it was definitely an 'experience' and we both came out shiny and clean with super soft skin.   Just like Christmas we spent the rest of the weekend eating far too much and my clothes are already beginning to pinch again...and now it is all over in true post-Christmas style I have developed a horrible cold. On top of that, the realisation that Nancy has now left the country is leaving me with a distinctly 'January blues' like feeling! At least I've still got New Years to look forward to. In Ethiopia we will look forward to the dawn of 2003 on September 12th. That day will also mark a full year since I left for Ethiopia and so it seems doubly relevant to reflect on the last 12 months and celebrate the start of a new year then! Right now I am feeling quite spoiled that I've already had 2 Christmases' (notincluding this weekend with Nancy) and am due to get 2 New Years all in the space of 12 months!