Happy New Year!!!!
2020! How crazy is that! Another year, with a lot of incredible and amazing memories has gone by! As I’m sitting in the bus back to Skye and then over to Uist, I thought I use the time to reflect on all the things that happened in 2019. Let’s start with:
January: I spontaneously celebrated Hogmanay in Edinburgh at the Street Party with friends, which was a great experience but not having a place to stay and no trains on the 1st January wasn’t really helpful in that case. Never mind. We survived it somehow and got a bus to Stirling from where a good friend and I started a great little roadtrip by train. We started off in Stirling, went onto Inverness, including Urquhart Castle and then onto Elgin, Aberdeen and Dundee with some nice scenic routes on the way. Because we didn’t have to drive it was a super chilled journey and we could still see lots of the countryside. Just two weeks later, we went to Celtic Connections to see some gigs there, which was an amazing experience as it was my first time at this festival.
February: The month had just began and I made my way to Glasgow again to see another great gig at Celtic and after that we went down to Dumfries in the Borders to go to the Big Burns Supper Festival. What a cute little festival! There’s nothing better than a Spiegeltent am I right?! Just a week after that I had my audition in Glasgow and a day later I flew to Germany to visit the family. I had an awesome time back home with my friend Larissa, who I met at the beginning of my AuPair in August 2018. Another friend joined us on the flight back to Scotland, to visit me in Callander. A great week, two cities, two pizzas for dinner and two piercings later I was on my own again.
March: I started the months with my English exam for university as I just took the offer for my music degree at the University of the Highlands and Islands! Also not to forget the amount of nights I spent in the Park Bar that month! I had an awesome time in Germany in March again when I went to our annual piping workshop. I’m going to this workshop for a long time now but I think this was the first time I managed to stay for the full 4 days because there were no other events. Awesome nights, awesome drinks and awesome tunes! A week later my soulmate came to visit and I spent some more time in Glasgow (who would’ve thought) and we went to the Barrowlands for a gig. What a venue, absolutely love it!
April: As the schools were on holiday for two weeks we did another trip to Aberdeen and Dundee to visit friends. After that we did a pretty awesome trip to Belfast with the Stena Superfast. Cruise ships! How I missed them! Awesome weather & awesome pubs, Belfast you didn’t disappoint! Other friends from Germany came to visit and I showed them Conic Hill, Loch Lomond, Doune Castle as well as Edinburgh. Just after that I went up to Lochgelly in Fife to go see the parents who arrived a couple of days earlier and meet our pipe teachers up there.
May: My parents stayed in Callander and enjoyed day trips whilst I was busy working. Fair enough. They were on holiday. I used the weekend to show them Glasgow and decided I should now officially do city tours in Glasgow. With Kelvingrove Art Gallery, the Botanic Gardens, Buchanan Street, the SSE Hydro, the West End and everything else you could think off. I feel like we walked at least 10 miles on that day! We also managed to see a gig that night, what a day! Later in the month two friends and I booked a caravan in the middle of nowhere in Acharacle with no WiFi and no signal and spent a weekend there. Even though it rained the whole weekend and we couldn’t send any messages we had the most amazing time! The perfect spot to get away from everything and get back to the good old board games!
June: Festival season has officially begun! That means it is time for a new festival. The Gathering in Inverness on the 1st June was such a thing and what a festival it was. A one day festival specialised on gaelic culture and music with a programme from lunchtime till 11 at night! Great times! A week later we made it to ObanLive! We bought the tickets in January so it was a long time waiting for this. An awesome two days in ObanLive with the best weather you could wish for, a great camping site to spend the morning and lunchtime, great! After that I made my way down to Innerleithen at the borders to have a barbecue at a friends house. The sun came out, we had loads of people over and a lovely time! Having spent 10 months with the family, it was extremely weird that my time as an AuPair was over and that I had to say goodbye now. After that I spent over a week doing the North Coast 500, Harris, Skye and the West Coast with a friend and the tent in the back of the car. What an experience!
July: Some chilled time in Callander and then Tiree Music Festival! I was working as a volunteer at the festival and it was one of the best experiences I ever made! It was such a good atmosphere, the weather was unbelievable and the music was incredible! The afterparty on Monday night summed up the whole festival perfectly and we left the island on Tuesday. A busy few days ahead as I was travelling back to Germany on Wednesday, rehearsals on Thursday and Friday for a concert on Friday night on my home island Föhr! A few days later I made my way to Leipzig to meet up with great friends I met in Scotland and to visit the rest of the family, as well as surprise granddad for his 75th Birthday! Back to Föhr after 5 days in Leipzig and from then on: work!
August: August was basically working almost every day but ended with the best weekend of the year Tonder Festival in Denmark! What a weekend, what a festival, what a time! Jesus Christ!
September: After my last days of working I packed all the things and flew back to Scotland for university. Exciting new chapter! I spent a week in Inverness meeting all the other students, creating new music and making great friends. Then it was time to visit my AuPair family again, pick up all the stuff I left there before the summer and send it to the Outer Hebrides. After the weather decided it was not time to come to Uist yet I spent a spontaneous night in Uig and then a day later finally made it to Uist! I met all the great lecturers and other students and saw the Uists for the first time! What a landscape. I doubt that you will see something like that anywhere else. It was a few days after I arrived, when I decided that I will start writing these blogs. It’s been a great thing to do and I will still continue doing it in 2020!
October: University slowly started to be normal and a routine started to form. We had some great nights with mighty kitchen ceilidhs, a lot of booze and a lot of music! What a time! Also a friend from Germany came to visit me and we did some awesome recordings during her stay here. We managed to record six tracks in five days! Not bad in my opinion!
November: It was my first time going to the mainland since coming to the island right at the beginning of November. 5 hours on the ferry and 3 hours on the train later I made it to Glasgow and had an awesome time with one of my best friends! Glasgow is always a belter and after an awesome weekend and the ferries decided again to not sail, I made it back to Uist on Monday night! We had a great trip to Vatersay with all the other students and another great gig in Grogarry Lodge in South Uist to finish off November.
December: Time for Christmas music, Christmas movies, mulled wine and lots of Christmas cookies! It was a busy time at the beginning finishing off all the assignments for university but we survived that and life got back to normal after that! After some celebrations for done exams and passed exams I made my way back to Germany for Christmas time. Through unplanned circumstances I ended up playing a few more gigs at home during Christmas time. It was not chilled but fun and what would life be without appointments right? Three gigs on Christmas Day, the next one on the 29th rehearsals on the 30thand the final gig on the 1st January 2020. Because I had great pals visiting during that time it felt not as busy as it was and I would do it all over again!
Wow what a year! It’s been a lot and I seriously didn’t think it was that much! I am incredibly thankful for all the experiences I made and all the great pals that I spent 2020 with! I would recommend for yourself writing down all the things you did and experienced in the last year, it definitely makes you appreciate everything a lot more!
I hope you had a great 2020 so far and I personally can’t wait for all the new things to come in this year! That’s me for now. Next blog: Probably at the weekend.
Have a good one guys & Take care!
Cheerio bye,
Emilia
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