Burns' Night

Friday night started off as a nice quiet night. A bit windy, but the prospect of sushi was enough to get me out the door. Unfortunately, the sushi restaurant was full. So we (Alejandro, Giorgia, Maria, Angela, Gaetano, and I) went to a Dutch restaurant in Cow Square that I had been to with my parents. The lamb chops were excellent. After dinner Alejandro and I were feeling a bit lazy, but he had been invited to a Scottish party. He called Jairo, who was there, and he said that they were just sitting around talking and drinking. How boring, I thought. But it was on the way home, so we figured that we would stop by...

When we arrived at Wendy's house (our Scottish English (writing) teacher) we found some friends drinking whiskey and reciting poetry. I felt like I was back in college for a moment. It turns out that January 25th is known as Burns' Night. To celebrate the birthday of the Scottish poet Robert Burns, one reads poetry and drinks whiskey and eats shortbread (we had missed the pudding earlier). So, there was poetry, singing, stories, recipes, and even a game.



Then there was the dancing. The rug was rolled up and the socks and shoes came off. The rest of the evening was spent dizzying ourselves by locking elbows and twirling for eight counts. Unfortunately I do not have authorization to show that video.

Alejandro and I came home around 3AM. The Australian Open was on, so he suggested we watch a bit of tennis. I changed into my pyjamas and dragged my duvet two doors down to his room and made myself comfortable on the floor. I think I fell asleep before the first point was over. I woke up at about 11AM the next day feeling great, except for a dream about teaching snakes how to slither in straight line. I think Burns would have been satisfied.