Happy Silvester!

Where to start? Let's see. . . morning of 31 Dec, slept until 10 am, lazed about, managed to be showered and dressed by lunchtime. Anja came for lunch and then there was quick packing of overnight bags and Philipp, Piff, Anja, and I managed to get into a car and on the road to head to the cousin's house (Gerhard and Eva still had to do something else and wanted to stop by Oma's first, so we left early; Basti didn't go because he was hosting a Party of his own here). . . an hour and a half on the road. . . trying to get my iPod's volume to cover Piff's less-awesome music and yet still be a comfortable volume (failed), then we were there and Philipp parked literally inside a large snowdrift (it was crazy and you should have seen it) and I met my host aunt and uncle and cousins (Nico, Dani, and Caro) there was tea and German cheesecake (it is not like American cheesecake) and then, in the true fashion of family gatherings as I know them, the kids disappeared to the basement to play until dinnertime. Sure, we are all over 18, but that doesn't stop us from choosing rousing rounds of Uno and Activity (pictionary plus taboo plus charades for lots of fun) over helping prepare dinner or participating in boring Grown-Up conversation. We started with Activity, where Dani broke through our indecision about teams by having us draw slips and symbols. . . I thus ended up on his team (probably bad for him, considering my lack of German skills), Caro, Nico and Philipp ended up together, and then Anja and Piff. As it turns out, I am not too terrible at German, although there were quite a few cards I put back because I had no clue what the word was, but Anja and Piff spent most of the game winning because Anja is too smart. In the end, it was Nico and Caro and Philipp that won through some magical pictionary vortex of skill. Also, we learned the absolute funniest charades word ever: stark naked (German: splitternackt). There is a part of the game where the non-winning teams pick a card and a word from the card for the winning team to make things more difficult, and we forced this doozy on Philipp for acting out to Nico and Caro- it was hilarious in the literal roll-on-the-floor way, and I highly recommend it for spicing up your next game of charades. Uno followed Activity and was less hilarious but still fun in all the ways Uno is (also, possible for me to win), although there were quite a few giant stacks which seemed to always get passed between Caro, Philipp, me, and Dani, which isn't fun at all. Dinner was far too late but delicious and then we hung out (grown-ups included) waiting for midnight. . . at some point, chocolate left over from last year that was at our house but got brought along for unknown reasons got pulled out, and some genius insisted that chocolate never goes bad, so let's eat it. Dani made sure that every one of us took a piece, and a few brave souls ate theirs first and declared it terrible. . . Piff and I, being smart, nibbled tiny bits off, discovered that it was so nasty (it tasted vaguely like burnt marshmallow gone horribly wrong) and quickly rewrapped the offending piece to be rid of. No one has died yet, but I am still glad I didn't eat the thing. Finally, midnight drew near, and we bundled up to go outside and shoot off fireworks (wheee). . . people were already firing them off from basically every backyard in the village, so the sky was all full of pretty. . . we had the longest sparklers in the world (seriously, they were huge) and also normal sparklers and mini sparklers and rockets! We started shooting them off and then it was apparently midnight (there was no counting down) and we all hugged and went back to firing off rockets like the rest of the world- there were plenty of funny moments, inspired mostly by our insistence on using sparklers to light the rockets and the tendency of tea lights to blow out in the cold and it was late, so I don't remember things clearly. . . when we ran out of fireworks, we went back up and stood outside the door to drink strange red Sekt (there was maybe some sort of fruit juice in it? No one was quite sure what was up with it) and then we declared it Too Cold and went inside to wait for Dinner For One to come on (at 1:30). . . ah, Dinner for One. For weeks, I have been hearing about how this movie (if we can call it that at 18 minutes) Is New Year's Eve. It is impossible to explain: a German movie, but the spoken language is English: no dubbing, no subtitles, just increasingly drunken English. The idea is that it is some rich old lady's birthday, and she has invited her four closest friends, but her four closest friends have been dead for over 25 years, so her long-suffering butler James has to fill in for them all at the dinner table, which consists of toasting the Lady for each guest every time there is fresh alcohol. . . it is so funny to watch this guy get drunker and drunker and there is no way to capture it for you- one of those things you have to come to Europe on New Year's to experience, unless you find it on the internet or something. After the movie, we decided we were all falling asleep anyway, so we figured out air mattresses and sleeping bags and sleeping arrangements and eventually got to bed. . . I slept in Caro's room and talking to her in the dark before we fell asleep was exactly like talking to my real cousin in the dark before we fall asleep. . . it is comforting to have these parallels. I slept or half-slept for quite some time. . . I have no idea what time it was when Dani came in and reported that he had been sent to drag me out of bed, but I got up and found Anja, Caro, Nico and Piff playing cards and we then found Philipp and Dani to start a game of Career Poker (it is Capitalism except with little signs for the positions and its own special cards and everything- I felt so official!) that lasted all day because it is one of those awesome games that you never want to end, because you just might make it to Boss in the next round. Caro spent Forever as Dishwasher (this game's version of Scum) and Dani and Anja had the top two positions covered for a while until I got into my groove and knocked Dani from his throne, at which point things became nicely random and much more fun. We stopped for lunch, which turned into more hanging out, and my host parents decided to head home, but Career Poker drew us too much and we stayed for a few more rounds- the very last round ended with Dani as Boss and me in the second position, which we decided was a very comfortable place to end (also it was dark). We packed up the car and said good-bye and the way home included Adventures in Getting Gas (the first gas station's money-taking machine being broken), and also Fog and we dropped Anja off and came home, where I considered putting a blog off for tv, but Sunday Night on German tv is so boring (there is some strange Mozart Candy-Based Musical on, that appears to just use songs that already existed and may or may not have a plot), so here I am. This blog is nowhere near as good as it could be because I am So Tired, but you will survive.

Gutes Neues Jahr, my readers.

Oh no! I nearly forgot the most important thing! Song of the Year 2006! Are you fully prepared? No, because that is impossible. So thanks to Josh Woodward for hooking me up with this gem- Nickel Creek, covering Britney Spears' "Toxic." I challenge you to tell me that isn't deserving of being the song of an entire year that hasn't even happened yet. I challenge you to find a better song. I nearly squealed out loud in the car when my iPod played this thing. Squealed!