I arrived in Waterbury, Vermont, half a bottle of Captain Morgan deep to be greeted by Carson, one of my American friends I met last year. We headed straight into Burlington where we caught up with another of my friends; Tommy. From Tommy’s we headed to a party at one of Carson’s mates house. One thing I discovered pretty quickly about Vermont is that there’s not a lot to do except ski. It was late December and there was still no snow on the ground and everyone was freaking out. The guys whose party we were at had built a ramp covered in ice shavings from the local ice skating rink to get them through the hard times. Fortunately I brought the snow gods from Iceland and the snow began soon after my arrival (Essential if I was to get my first white Christmas)! After a while we resided indoors to the safety of the pong table; it felt fantastic to exercise the table tennis ball throwing arm and the shotgunning skills after a four month layoff. Unfortunately Captain Morgan and the high octane beers caught up on me fairly quickly and an early night ensued.
The next day we went for a walk around the town and I was showed some of the sights the city had to offer, before heading back to Carson’s place out of town for the night.
The next day I met his family and was invited along on the annual Christmas tree hunt in the forest near their house; I was the eventual winner of the hunt, picking a spectacular, 7 foot, perfectly symmetrical beauty.
Later that night we attended the “Prickly Pageant”; a gathering of all the families from around the town, to sing Christmas carols and perform skits of current affairs. This was certainly an experience I won’t forget in a hurry and was a great start to the Christmas season.
After the pageant we headed into another party in Burlington. A few beers deep and we came up with the idea to go hiking the next day, up the second highest mountain in Vermont. I had only the casual clothes I was wearing however after they made a couple of quick calls, I was informed they had gear for me if I was keen.
I awoke in their house the next day, changed into the tramping gear that was awaiting and we set off to hike “Camels Hump”. It was an amazing hike to the top; frozen waterfalls and huge icicles made for spectacular viewing. At the top, the sunset pierced through the clouds creating some amazing rays onto the landscape below.
(Unfortunately during the hike my camera copped a bit of water damage so its currently in recovery mode. So unfortunately there arn't too many photos beyond this point of the blog!)
After a couple of days painting, we went out to a comedy show performed by an ex-Vermont girl. It turned out half her show was about her travels in NZ, so I sat there taking cheap shots (many untrue) for much of the show. I’ll cut her some slack though; what are the chances of a Kiwi being in an audience of around 50 people, in the middle of Nowhere, USA.
Later that night; SNOW!
A couple of days later Carson dropped me off in Burlington after a great week spent with his family. I ate like a king and was looked after far too nicely.
After leaving Carson I met up with Mel; my American exchange flatmate from the semester before I left overseas. We headed to her aunt and uncles house for a Christmas eve dinner, where the conversation over dinner was about who was the best catholic in the family; Riveting stuff.
CHRISTMAS! My first white Christmas ever and it snowed like crazy the whole day! I was lucky enough to be given a Christmas stocking by Mel’s family (present highlights included a bottle of genuine Vermont maple syrup (which will be chugged supertroopers style in the near future) and a toy car) and it was a great day all around.
On boxing day I got back on the tourist trail, visiting Ben & Jerry’s ice cream factory and the Vermont cider mill. Any sort of jam, mustard or sauce you could think of, was there in cider or maple syrup flavour.
Tonight I’m meeting up with Lauren another exchange friend, and we could potentially be heading to Montreal for the night, before heading back down to NYC for New Years.
P.s: Hope everyone in ChCh is ok.
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