Schönes neues Jahr

Once again.. sorry for being late.. but HAPPY NEW YEAR!! I hope everyone had an awesome New Year's Eve--hopefully this year it wasn't dominated by my mother repeating where Champagne comes from.. ;) On New Year's Eve at around 7:30 or so I caught the U-bahn to Bonn Hauptbahnhof (main station) where I met up with Bertus (again, Lisa's brother) and his best friends girlfriend, Katrin. The 3 of us then got on a very short train ride to Bad Godesberg where one of Bertus' and Katrin's friends was hosting a small party. After getting off the train we probably walked for about 20 minutes or so (which not only sucks when wearing heels.. but sucks REALLY bad when having to walk on like cobblestone old world European streets..) But we got there no problem. The house was awesome and in the dinning room was a super long table where probably around 16 people or so were all sitting around eating. (Of course, we were late..) Bertus and I sat down at the end of the table and started arguing about how to properly eat shrimp. Okay, so I know I am right and he is wrong (obviously) but umm okay, everyone reading this has had cocktail shrimp, yeah? And it's served chilled, yeah? Yeah. I'm right. He thought I was like really weird for saying that you are supposed to eat it cold. But whatever. We got over it. We ate some awesome food with of course some Kölsch. After dinner the table was cleared and everyone was sitting around playing a drinking game with dice that I have never heard of. While that was going on, I was in the kitchen talking to a few girls, one of which said she had been an Au Pair in New York. I asked her where, and she replied with "a town called West Chester, outside of the city" I told her how my brother's fiance is pretty much from there. She knew of the high school that Lisa went too. I swear, small world. After talking to her a little bit more, and I went back into the dinner room where people were sitting up some glasses to play 'quarters'. Although, the exact version they were playing, I know as 'Chandeliers'. I actually had a few quarters on me, so I offered them to the group, since they are thinner than a 1 Euro coin, they are better to play with. At one point the guy next to me had his cup hit, so he had to drink. He was pretty much sipping his beer and everyone was yelling at him to chug it and what not. Me, being the stranger asshole, turned to him and just said "du bist ein Mädchen!" (which means, 'you are a little girl!'). Everyone started laughing--except the guy I said it too.. oops. Oh well, it was funny, and I was proud of myself for not being shy enough to NOT make fun of him. We continued playing the game for a while (the guy next to me left), and a girl sat down next to me and decided she wanted to play to, however, she wanted to play with her mixed drink instead of beer like everyone else. Uhh.. okay lady, it's your funeral. So she was sitting in between Bertus and I, and I kept trying to hit his cup. Well, needless to say I hit this girl's mixed drink (which she then has to drink) 3 times in a row before she finally quit the game. It was pretty hilarious, because I wasn't trying to hit hers at all.

After playing a little longer, it was almost midnight, so we all put our coats on and went outside. At midnight fireworks went off and we watched them from the driveway. Afterwards, we went back inside, drank some more and then it was finally time to go home at around 2? I'm not really sure what time it was. So Bertus, Katrin and I started to leave to go find a cab to take us back into Bonn. This is where the night started to getting hilarious.

First off, Katrin went from 0-60 at some point in the night, because she was fine--talking normal, nothing strange and then right when we were leaving BAM! The chick was SHITFACED. I mean, like, couldn't walk, slurred words, everything. I couldn't help but laugh, because honestly, I have NO idea how/when she got so hammered. We were able to find a cab and got in, with 2 random guys sharing it with us? and headed back to central Bonn. When we got there we walked Katrin (I use the word "walk" very loosely..) to her apartment building. We found out she lived on the fourth floor or so, and there was no way in HELL she would have been able to make it on her own, so Bertus helped her up all the stairs. After dropping her off, Bertus and I began the walk back to his apartment. As we were walking Bertus said "I'm hungryyyy", so we went to get some always delicious Döner. Bertus ordered for me as well, and asured me that what he was getting for us was really good. I mean, I was drunk, and it's Döner, so how could it not be? At the time, the PommDöner that he got us was AMAZING.. looking back, I want to barf. Basically, it was just a pita in the shape of a cone filled with fries, meat (lamb), and some sauce. We ate it on most of the walk home. As we neared his house, Bertus took the remainder of his döner and said "fertig" (means "finished") and casually tossed it in the doorway of an apartment building. I then, not to be outdone, 5 seconds later, yelled "FERTIG" and spiked mine as hard as I could against an apartment building's door. It seriously looked like a bomb had exploded. Oops. We both started laughing forever. Then another hilarious thing happened in our adventurous walk home. As we got much closer to his apartment--pretty much there, Bertus became all serious and was like "oh, I'll show you something! I do this every time I come home at night". He then proceeded to pick up some herbs that were growing next to one of the small trees on the sidewalk and began rubbing it in between his hands. I'm pretty sure at this second, I thought he was crazy. He then opened his hands and had me smell the crushed up Rosemary. I couldn't stop laughing because I just kept thinking of what it would look like to someone randomly seeing some drunk guy alone on the street at like 4 in the morning smelling herbs in his hands. hahahaha SOOOO funny. I'm laughing about it right now just thinking about it. The best also is how he explained to me that he does it because it makes him feel "gourmet".. haha omg, he is so great :)

When we finally made it back to his place, before I fell asleep I made sure to set my alarm on my phone for 5:58am. When my alarm went off, I got up and went to wake Bertus up as well (he had no idea what I was doing), and then I pulled out 2 mini bottles of Champagne and toasted to the Ohio New Year :) It was such an adorable plan of mine.

Wow. Okay.. and THAT was my New Year's here in Germany :) Sorry if it sounded really scatter-brained, but I pretty much wrote it a few sentences at a time throughout the day. I promise to post again soon. I think I might be going back to the TNDC meeting in Köln again this Thursday, so I could possibly have something interesting to report back soon. I hope everyone had an awesome New Year's back home, and as always I miss/love you all! :) Oh! And the picture I posted on here, is of fireworks going off over the Brandenburg Gate, which is obviously in Berlin.. and no, I wasn't there, but I liked the picture. So whatever. Sue me. Post again soon! xoxo Meg