Fireworks and free bars
Christmas passed in the usual haze of parties beforehand and sloth and gluttony during. All very nice too.
Headed back to Berlin for Silvester, via a near death experience flying out of Gatwick, during which the plane started to rock from side to side with turbulence before even leaving the runway, and continued to lurch around violently all through the take-off. A glance around the plane showed fellow passengers universally silent, ashen-faced and those not in the brace position gripping onto their seats with white-knuckled hands. I think we were all pretty sure that the end was nigh. Definitely my hairiest flying experience to date, worse even than the llama on the runway incident in Peru.
Having survived that, of course we then had to run the gauntlet of the sociopathic Germans and their firework chucking antics. At least this year I knew what I was in for, but I was able to enjoy it again as if for the first time through the shocked and terrified eyes of the friend who was visiting from London. We ran hand in hand up Unter den Linden, ready to hit the deck at any moment.
I’ve never done a big public Trafalgar Square type NYE, and probably never will either. However, VIP passes for the freebie tent courtesy of a good friend who was involved in the organising meant that the Brandenburg Gate party was fabulous. The only quibble was that the Scissor Sisters received an extraordinarily tepid reception for such a great live band, possibly a result of the fact that Berlin crowds are even worse than London ones for trying to look cool rather than show any enthusiasm, or maybe just because the city – whose two chief musical modes are techno and dark Nick Cave type gloom-rock - really doesn’t do glitzy disco pop. I think that in the whole of Brandenburg Gate there were only 6 people dancing – us and two gay blokes. The Sugarbabes seemed to go down better, but maybe I just wasn’t in a state to notice by that point. A free bar is, after all, a free bar. In my experience it generally ends in somebody’s tears. Luckily this night they weren’t mine.
Now in the midst of grim January rehab horror. Alcohol-free beer is wrong wrong wrong. Just a small part of its wrongness is that you still spend all night in the toilet. Drinking tea in the Oscar Wilde reminded me of my early days here watching the Ashes, and talking of which - as far as I’m concerned what is reported to have just happened in Australia didn’t in reality happen at all. Come to that, I’m not even entirely sure that Australia actually exists.
Headed back to Berlin for Silvester, via a near death experience flying out of Gatwick, during which the plane started to rock from side to side with turbulence before even leaving the runway, and continued to lurch around violently all through the take-off. A glance around the plane showed fellow passengers universally silent, ashen-faced and those not in the brace position gripping onto their seats with white-knuckled hands. I think we were all pretty sure that the end was nigh. Definitely my hairiest flying experience to date, worse even than the llama on the runway incident in Peru.
Having survived that, of course we then had to run the gauntlet of the sociopathic Germans and their firework chucking antics. At least this year I knew what I was in for, but I was able to enjoy it again as if for the first time through the shocked and terrified eyes of the friend who was visiting from London. We ran hand in hand up Unter den Linden, ready to hit the deck at any moment.
I’ve never done a big public Trafalgar Square type NYE, and probably never will either. However, VIP passes for the freebie tent courtesy of a good friend who was involved in the organising meant that the Brandenburg Gate party was fabulous. The only quibble was that the Scissor Sisters received an extraordinarily tepid reception for such a great live band, possibly a result of the fact that Berlin crowds are even worse than London ones for trying to look cool rather than show any enthusiasm, or maybe just because the city – whose two chief musical modes are techno and dark Nick Cave type gloom-rock - really doesn’t do glitzy disco pop. I think that in the whole of Brandenburg Gate there were only 6 people dancing – us and two gay blokes. The Sugarbabes seemed to go down better, but maybe I just wasn’t in a state to notice by that point. A free bar is, after all, a free bar. In my experience it generally ends in somebody’s tears. Luckily this night they weren’t mine.
Now in the midst of grim January rehab horror. Alcohol-free beer is wrong wrong wrong. Just a small part of its wrongness is that you still spend all night in the toilet. Drinking tea in the Oscar Wilde reminded me of my early days here watching the Ashes, and talking of which - as far as I’m concerned what is reported to have just happened in Australia didn’t in reality happen at all. Come to that, I’m not even entirely sure that Australia actually exists.
posted by Roisin at 2:59 pm
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