When we first walked through the house with our landlord Lars prior to move-in, he made sure to show off the loft on our top floor. It's not like your typical room, with the "walls" on either side connecting to the ceiling at a 45 degree angle. The reason for that is the room is essentially a converted finished attic, so the "walls" are the roof outside. The room has huge windows built into the roof that open up and allow you to stand within to look outside. He said the reason they put those in was to put seats in front of the window and be able to look outside over the city, as well as feel a cool breeze from all around since essentially you'd be sitting outside at that point. Neat concept, and it made for a FANTASTIC view of the city when the fireworks were going off. I know that's hard to visualize, but if you look at the picture of us below, as well as watch the video you'll see the windows opened to the point that they were above us as we stood in the window area.
Because we lived in the city and knew they'd have a bigger show then the smaller towns, we invited some friends over. It was the usual group you've probably gotten to know from previous posts. Jenny & Chris came over, then Katia, Scott & their son Matthew, and finally Kate & Charles. Katia & Scott recently got an 18 month old Golden Retriever named Heidi and of course Kate & Charles have their Shibu Inu, Pixel. Both brought their dogs, so we had 10 people and 4 dogs running around.
Being the creative cook that Shanna is, we had a pretty big spread laid out. She made mini-calzones, bacon-wrapped cream cheese stuffed jalapenos (big thanks to Missy & Alex for introducing us to those), crescent rolls mixed with a ranch cheese, chips, dip, cheese plate, fruit plate, veggie plate, and the center piece, cupcakes laid out like a clock with the time pointed at midnight. The cupcakes you see in the picture below had to be fixed...cupcakes 5, 6, and 7 were a bit too close to the edge, and when we weren't looking, Murphy got on his hind legs and grabbed them off the table. Thankfully Shanna had made extra, so it didn't take long to make three new ones...but we had to barricade the room off from that point forward so no dogs could get in.
Jenny & Chris got there first, and while we were talking with them, Jenny told us that if Katia tells us after midnight to get an egg and run outside, just do it. The one thing that makes conversation interesting with Katia & Jenny is their accents make for some funny misunderstandings. Jenny is from Wisconsin and has a thick midwest accent, while Katia is from Ecuador and has a strong South American accent. Jenny said that Katia was telling her about a South American tradition where if you plan on travelling in the new year, you take an egg, and walk outside with it and it's supposed to bring you good luck with your travels. Sounds odd, but there are plenty of strange American traditions too, so we didn't question it. Scott & Katia came over next, and Shanna was talking with Scott when Scott mentioned the same tradition, but instead of eggs, he said you bring your luggage outside after midnight. That's when Shanna put 2 and 2 together, and realized Katia must have said "bags", but with her accent, and the way Jenny pronounces her letter "a", she heard "eggs". The funny part was even with the misunderstanding, Jenny, Katia, and Shanna took eggs outside for a walk after midnight as a joke.
Kate & Charles were the last to arrive, and the dog party started. Murphy isn't big on playing with other dogs, but Milo can't get enough of it. He would wrestle & play with Heidi, then when she was tired, Pixel would jump in and Milo would play with her. Below is a short video I took of Heidi & Milo playing.
The night was a fun night, we had football on TV, plenty of food & beer, and Katia even brought over a bottle of Scotch I'd never heard of before, but was incredibly smooth. The one tradition Katia told us about that she wanted to do was at 11:59 you have to eat a cup of grapes for good luck in the new year. So about 10 minutes before midnight we gathered up in the loft, opened the windows, and got the Champagne & Chimay ready. For those who don't know, Chimay is a Belgian beer that Shanna & I love. Everyone else was going to toast with Champagne, but we wanted to toast with Chimay. When 11:59 hit, we had our glasses ready and started eating the cups of grapes. Then midnight hit, we toasted, and it was 2011!
Back in October, at the end of Volksfest, the fair grounds shot fireworks off. We could see them in the distance from our house, and it was kind of neat to see, but nothing spectacular. We thought they might have fireworks there, as well as a few above city center. We didn't expect much. The fireworks laws are pretty strict in Germany, but as we found out, they are strict only in terms of when you can buy them and shoot them off. There didn't appear to be ANY restrictions on the type of fireworks. About ten minutes to midnight, the barrage started. When I say the city looked like a war zone, I'm not exaggerating. The video I'm going to post below only gives a slight glimpse of what it was like. Make sure your sound is turned on for the full effect. Tim, a friend of mine who lives in VA, made the comment that it looks like the city is exploding...that observation couldn't be more accurate. The video is only about 45 seconds, but the fireworks went on like this for a full 30 minutes. It was almost 12:30am before it stopped. Click the picture of the fireworks below to take you to the YouTube page with the video in HD.
The white patch in the lower left is Murphy. He was terrified when the fireworks started going off, so we took turns holding him so he wouldn't run around peeing everywhere from being scared. He was calmer in our arms, but was still shaking for the full 30 minute show. We tried putting him in our bedroom thinking he'd stay down there, but I guess even though he was scared he still wanted to be where we were. Normally at night, visibility from our house is about 10-20 miles out. By the time the fireworks were done, the smoke in the air was so thick you could see at most a quarter of a mile out.
Once things settled down, Scott & Katia headed home. Jenny, Chris, Kate, and Charles, though, stayed at our place for the night. We have several spare bedrooms, so everyone was able to get a good nights sleep.
We didn't head to bed until almost 3:30am, so we were a little late getting up the next morning. Everyone was finally up & moving around 10am. Kate & Charles had left earlier because Charles had to work that morning, so Jenny, Chris, Shanna & I took showers, got cleaned up, and headed over to Scott & Katia's house. The night before they had invited us over for brunch on New Years Day. We got over there about 11:30, and as we were walking up to the house we could smell the bacon cooking. After a long New Years Eve night, that smelled fantastic.
We sat around talking for a bit, and finally brunch was ready. They had bacon, pancakes, a breakfast casserole, biscuits, and eggs to order. Scott even cooked the eggs in the bacon grease. Everything was delicious. Chris, Matthew & I played a few games of Madden while the ladies were looking at some of the jewelery that Katia had made. Apparently back in Columbia she did that as a side job...she'd make & sell jewelery. It was funny watching Heidi try and get Milo to play...Milo was so worn out from the night before that he would have nothing of it...he just stayed in my lap. We've NEVER seen him turn down playing before.
That was about it...we were pretty tired by the time we got home later that afternoon, so we finished cleaning up from the night before then crawled into bed & watched football. We weren't the only ones tired...both dogs sacked out as soon as we got home and didn't wake up until the next morning. Sunday was just a lazy day of watching College Bowl games and NFL games.
We didn't take many pics, so the two pics I have above will take you to a higher resolution version if you click on them.
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