Yesterday I was invited to join Nathan and his colleagues for their annual Christmas dinner. It was really nice meeting the people who works with Nathan we did have something unexpected popping up.
It all started with Nathan and I making our way to meet up with one of his colleagues that live fairly close to us. When we arrive we all just waited together because the plan was to take a bus together with the rest of the party. After a while we got a call from another colleague telling us that they had try to get a hold of the bus driver, but he wasn’t picking up the phone which meant that we would have to make our way into the city. This was also the day that the public transport people were striking, so we were a bit worried about not getting a tram in to the city. Thankfully it wasn’t that bad and we found our way.
When we arrived into the city we were a bit early so we decided to check out the market while waiting for the others. They had some really nice stalls with food, clothes, jewelry’s etc. After around 1h of walking around we decided to try one of the places that sold gin. I went for chocolate flavor. It was okay but I still don’t like the taste of alcohol that much. We finally met up with the rest of the group and one of the girls immediately brought up a bottle of vodka for us to share. This was something we were not expecting. We all had some including me and Nathan was enjoying the look on my face when i was drinking it. After feeling warm inside thanks to the vodka we slowly made our way to the restaurant. Nathan was feeling a bit tipsy since he hadn’t eaten since noon. I was also feeling lightheaded cause I hadn’t eaten at all xD.
The place we went to was a small tapas place called Tapabar. Everyone had already decided on a menu. I went with a meat version while Nathan took the seafood one. I had a great time talking to the others. I was surprised on how many knew English. Some people were defiantly feeling the effects of the alcohol during dinner, but no one was being super drunk. We got served a bunch of different foods and just shared everything amongst everyone. We had shrimps, mussels, chicken, chorizo and a bunch of other dishes. They were all really tasty. When we got the check everyone’s faces lit up since it was above € 800. Everyone paid for their own food, but we still managed to fall € 100 short so one guy just decided to pay for that instead of having everyone double check again.
After dinner we all just walked around some more because the others hadn’t seen the Christmas market yet. We took some pictures under the tree and had some more flavored gin. Eventually Nathan and I decided to head home because it was getting late and we wanted to make sure we found a bus so that we wouldn’t have to take the electric scooters. I also had a small headache from the drinks and we were both quite tired.
When we got home we just relaxed for a while before heading to bed quite early. All in all it was a really nice evening and I had a nice time speaking to all of Nathan’s colleagues. They also seemed very interested in the fact that I was from Norway just like most of the adults I have met so far.
The Anna behind Yannani 