This is not my loot per se, but I’ll claim it anyway - bought my oldest niece her first Pratchett books and so far she is liking them a lot. Passing Pterry to the next generation can by my gift to myself 
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We’ve celebrated the holidays out of order this year thanks to numerous issues, so I don’t remember everything I got, but the lion’s share was four items of good chocolate and two very ugly tree ornaments (I haven’t had a tree up in years).
But, as usual, I GAVE a lot of awesome, much-appreciated gifts. That’s where I get my kicks, anyway.
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You know what they say about a guy with big feet right?
(Hard to buy shoes)
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I didn’t grow up with Christmas/don’t care about it. I am visiting my girlfriend’s family however, and they celebrate what my girlfriend calls Heathen Christmas (i.e. Jewish Christmas) so I actually have loot to write about for once. I got the most hilarious personal care kit (shampoo, body wash etc.) with a scent called, I kid you not: Really Ripped Abs, made all the more hilarious by my bowling ball physique.
But this was the best gift I never knew I always wanted:
“Isn’t that a kind of fruit?”
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More like bowling Baller, amirite? (Jealous of the shirt)
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I dunno, just grabbed it off the net. I AM going to build an LED sign at some point in 2016. I’m a power-saver, not a power-waster.
Scratch-off world map from my brother:
(I passed 50 this year, and I’m hoping to add 6 or 7 to the list in 2016)
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Dayum. I’ve been to maybe seven or eight. But I’ve been to forty states in the US 
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Whoa! Hope at least some of that is pleasure, not business.
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That totally counts!
I bought my son Stanislaw Lem’s Cyberiad and read him the first story out loud to give him the proper flavor. Yesterday afternoon he was giggling and reading us all passages from it. It’s like catnip for budding nerds.
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I’m not nearly as bad as my friend, who I can thank for a few of those countries. Literally no interest in the sights (or even food or accommodation, half the time), it’s literally just about the stamp. He didn’t even give the Coliseum a second glance, because there was only ever one reason to visit Rome* (or even Italy in general, if San Marino didn’t exist)
We couldn’t get a passport stamp, so he just got a Vatican postage stamp)
It’s all for pleasure. I can work from anywhere with wifi, so I sometimes work half days and spend the mornings cycling to my next host for the evening. We’ve hosted plenty of couchsurfers over the past couple of years, so I rarely have trouble finding someone to stay with for free.
- well, there’s also the Sovereign Military Order of Malta - people really care about the definition of country, territory, sovereign and visit.
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That is flipping fantastic. I do something similar, when I visit castles especially in the UK you can generally get tourist booklets with pages you can stamp (for example English Heritage).
I fill them with stamps. Every. Time.
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I just make the people traveling with me very frustrated: I can spend 3 hours asking questions of the docents just in a small country house. History in situ is so interesting!
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It certainly is. And while you are asking questions of the docents, I am literally climbing the walls. I regard Do Not Enter as a suggestion, not a command.
And if there are stairs or a tower (or a crypt)? I turn into a cross between Usain Bolt and a bloodhound.
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This year I was cycling through the “Bohemian Garden” area of the Czech Republic, and I stayed in a great little town with a young family. The house was a few hundred years old and they put me in the attic area, where you could see the original beams. The guy played the hurdy-gurdy (with this group) and as soon as I arrived he asked if I wanted to go beekeeping with him. We went to another young family’s house which had built by Germans about 200 years ago. The couple was redoing the house using traditional methods, and I got a tour of the house and garden. After some demonstration of the basics of beekeeping, we all had some Czech beer together before returning to the village for some food at a restaurant.
That’s basically what I travel for - I love castles (I grew up near Cahir and Cashel), but meeting locals who know local history and are invested in the culture is pure gold.
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Did you eat at Chipotle at some point?
Hope you’re getting to feeling better!
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I’ve been to both cahir and cashel, and if I ever couch surfed with a family that played gurdy and were bee keepers I might pass out from happiness.
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