SO besides being sick (not brown bottle flu) after New Years, I can officially say that, this was the BEST NEW YEARS EVER! Laura and I went extremely early to the Brandenburger Tor to celebrate "Silvester" (New Years Eve auf Deutsch) with about one million other people. I'm not joking. It was estimated around there. I guess they quit keeping track after 100,000. We went SUPER early to get us a spot close to the stage. Since we are a bit further north the sun sets pretty early, so it was already dark at 5pm when we got there. It was damp cold, but we got to see the warm up of the singers and go around to the stands etc. Around 8pm, we decided that the sea of people and the cold was not for us and it took us an hour to swim through the sea of people out to the other side. I think we could have gotten out easier by way of body surfing. Literally, Laura's feet sometimes did not touch the ground because we were so packed in like sardines.
So we returned to Klaus and Carola's house to bring in the new year with Bolle, which is a "jungle juice" likeness with fruit at the bottom! SUPER good.
So we played cards and then went outside to shoot fireworks. I would say it sounded like World War 3, but I'm not allowed to make those kinds of jokes here. But the amount of fireworks were incredible. There were more fireworks here for new years than Americans have for Fourth of July! I kept hearing them until at LEAST 3 am! The first few rockets Klaus and Carola lit were awesomely dangerous because one hit the side of the apartment and the other hit a car, but we didn't get in trouble....yet. Other than that we played with a lot of sparklers and shot off a whole collection of fireworks. (The next morning and still today, the streets are lined with firework remnants).
We went back upstairs and had jelly doughnuts, without holes, but one has mustard in it and if you eat it you have bad luck for the year. Luckily I got a plum filled one, so I should be good! Then we did another German tradition where we melted lead and throw it in water and whatever the shape it sets in, tells your future.
So we returned to Klaus and Carola's house to bring in the new year with Bolle, which is a "jungle juice" likeness with fruit at the bottom! SUPER good.
So we played cards and then went outside to shoot fireworks. I would say it sounded like World War 3, but I'm not allowed to make those kinds of jokes here. But the amount of fireworks were incredible. There were more fireworks here for new years than Americans have for Fourth of July! I kept hearing them until at LEAST 3 am! The first few rockets Klaus and Carola lit were awesomely dangerous because one hit the side of the apartment and the other hit a car, but we didn't get in trouble....yet. Other than that we played with a lot of sparklers and shot off a whole collection of fireworks. (The next morning and still today, the streets are lined with firework remnants).
We went back upstairs and had jelly doughnuts, without holes, but one has mustard in it and if you eat it you have bad luck for the year. Luckily I got a plum filled one, so I should be good! Then we did another German tradition where we melted lead and throw it in water and whatever the shape it sets in, tells your future.
Unfortunately, after all that fun, I got a bout of chills and had to go to bed. I woke up with a fever and a sore throat, but it was SOOO worth it!