Adventures in Paris: Joyeux Noel & Frohes Neues Jahr

I had to look up the German spelling for Happy New Year, and it is totally not what I was expecting.

Moving on.

I had to spend the holidays away from home this year - another first - but luckily I didn't have to be alone. I met up with Jeff and Megan in Paris for Christmas, where we basically ate our way around the city and watched BBC specials on Chechnya and other places. (In our defense, a lot of things were closed while we were there.) We did walk around the city quite a bit though, and managed to go to the Musee d'Orsay on our last day there. We also went to the Sacre Coeur, Laduree, and the Christmas market on the Champs Elysees, and saw many a drunk SDF shouting vulgarities on the metro. Christmas dinner was a little bit pricey but delicious - there was no turkey or ham involved, but foie gras, kir, tartiflette, profiteroles, and wine aren't a bad alternative.

After our short three day stay, we went to Germany to see friends who used to be German teaching assistants at Amherst. Jeff and I flew out first to Dusseldorf, where Helene picked us up at the airport and gave us a little tour of the city before taking us to a restaurant to eat an insane amount of food (I had a huge ham hock, mashed potatoes, and sauerkraut) and try German beers while we waited for Megan to arrive. After a not so successful attempt to go see a pink castle nearby, we picked Megan up from the airport and drove to Gottingen, a cute university town in the center of Germany. Again, we spent most of our time just hanging out and talking or watching movies, but it was easily the best week I've had since I've gotten to Europe. After the frustration I experienced in France, it was refreshing to get away for a bit and see friends in a place where things actually get done. Though I haven't spent too much time in Germany, from what I saw it is generally much cleaner, better organized, friendlier, and cheaper than France. I absolutely adore it, as our German friends heard approximately 10 times a day, and can't wait to head back there. Really, what is there not to love about a place where you can spend 20 minutes looking at all of the different Haribo candies, roads are cleared in a timely manner when it snows, and beer is 2 euros for 2 pints instead of 3 euros for half a pint?! Not to mention the guys, who are super tall and good looking, and somehow all speak English.

New Year's Eve was a little bit more exciting than the rest of our time in Gottingen, though the ice skating and trying out newly learned German phrases on servers in restaurants were also extremely entertaining. We dressed up in typical American fashion then had raclette (potatoes, meat, veggies, and bread with a lot of melted cheese) and sparkling wine before doing the bleigiesen thing, a German NYE tradition. Bleigeisen is where you melt metal shapes - we had a heart, money bag, coin, crown, and some others - over a candle then throw it into a bowl of cold water so that it takes a new form, then interpret the shape to find out your fortune. We had dessert afterward and hung out at the house for a little bit longer before heading out and counting down to the new year outside. We set off fireworks and lit sparklers (and by that I mean other people set off fireworks as I watched and played with sparklers instead) at midnight, when I accidentally texted people with "bonne anniversaire" instead of "bonne annee," then continued to ring in the new year until around 4 am. All in all a good night, though a far cry from what I usually do at home.