Deutsches NYE (or...Sylvester)
2 Comments Published by Michael on Thursday, January 01, 2009 at 7:34 AM.
Firstly, I will have to give Julie credit, because for over a month she has said we are going to Berlin to celebrate "Sylvester," but I did not believe her. Turn's out she was dead-on, and everywhere we went last night there were "Merry Sylvester" signs.....s0, I stand corrected.
After settling yesterday evening, we decided against taking a nap, even though we needed one desperately. Instead, we thought we would grab some dinner and wander about all evening until closer to midnight, when we planned to head to the Brandenburg Tor, the largest Sylvester celebration in Europe. Julie was forced to endure another Michaelish euro-travel experience - I do not like to eat places that are on-the-beaten-path, so to speak; instead, I would rather wander around for an hour or two until I can find somewhere sufficiently obscure and non-touristy.
We hit the jackpot with our search. Julie was losing patience with me, and we were both getting pretty cold and hungry after walking over half the city, but then we came across a tiny hole-in-the-wall where no one even spoke english. They had an all-you-can-eat buffet of German foods, and the place was filled with families from the neighborhood who all knew the owners. We stayed there for hours, and we ate and drank so much that we were ready for bed by about 9.
Julie, true to her word, drank her very first full-beer (a half-litre Franziskaner, if you care) during our meal.....and I had an array in the time she took to finish the one. I was very, very impressed.
We left Goethestrasse and the cozy comfort of our little pub for the freezing, dangerous (literally, there were people firing guns and fireworks EVERYWHERE...more on this later) streets of Berlin for the remainder of the evening. Within minutes, the notion of sleepiness was blown away by the biting wind and miles of walking that we were in store for.
To put it simply, we got ourselves quite lost, and were it not for a Libyan student that we ran into near the U-Bahn, we probably would have never found the Tor. We stood in the freezing cold amidst hundreds of thousands, drinking from our bottle of champagne, fireworks being lit all around, and counted down with the Germans to the huge fireworks display that ended our portion of the evening.
Approaching the Tor (in the background)
As the clock struck midnight
insanity ensued
we are pretty sure we saw this same picture on CNN today
It took us hour(s) to get home, mainly because we did not look at a map, and we stopped at the street vendors for snacks, but finally, who knows what time, we ended up back in the warm comfort of our hotel.
I am sure there is more to tell, especially about the fireworks portion of the evening, but I thought some of you would like to see a few pictures. We are off again, so until next time....Tschuss!
After settling yesterday evening, we decided against taking a nap, even though we needed one desperately. Instead, we thought we would grab some dinner and wander about all evening until closer to midnight, when we planned to head to the Brandenburg Tor, the largest Sylvester celebration in Europe. Julie was forced to endure another Michaelish euro-travel experience - I do not like to eat places that are on-the-beaten-path, so to speak; instead, I would rather wander around for an hour or two until I can find somewhere sufficiently obscure and non-touristy.
We hit the jackpot with our search. Julie was losing patience with me, and we were both getting pretty cold and hungry after walking over half the city, but then we came across a tiny hole-in-the-wall where no one even spoke english. They had an all-you-can-eat buffet of German foods, and the place was filled with families from the neighborhood who all knew the owners. We stayed there for hours, and we ate and drank so much that we were ready for bed by about 9.
Julie, true to her word, drank her very first full-beer (a half-litre Franziskaner, if you care) during our meal.....and I had an array in the time she took to finish the one. I was very, very impressed.
We left Goethestrasse and the cozy comfort of our little pub for the freezing, dangerous (literally, there were people firing guns and fireworks EVERYWHERE...more on this later) streets of Berlin for the remainder of the evening. Within minutes, the notion of sleepiness was blown away by the biting wind and miles of walking that we were in store for.
To put it simply, we got ourselves quite lost, and were it not for a Libyan student that we ran into near the U-Bahn, we probably would have never found the Tor. We stood in the freezing cold amidst hundreds of thousands, drinking from our bottle of champagne, fireworks being lit all around, and counted down with the Germans to the huge fireworks display that ended our portion of the evening.
Here we are, probably lost
Approaching the Tor (in the background)
As the clock struck midnight
insanity ensued
we are pretty sure we saw this same picture on CNN today
It took us hour(s) to get home, mainly because we did not look at a map, and we stopped at the street vendors for snacks, but finally, who knows what time, we ended up back in the warm comfort of our hotel.
Looks like y'all had a happy new year's evening. Keep posting. I like seeing what you are doing. :)
That sounds a lot like our New Year's Eve. We had some bbq at Bad Brad's and then got an ice cream at Sonic and ate it while we looked at Christmas lights one last time...then we were in bed by 10:30. We're party animals.