Whoo, those Austrians can party...
New Year's Eve was an exciting look into Austrian culture that I hadn't gotten the chance to see lol - I spent last night watching a magnificent firework display as the whole town blew up with explosions, conversing with students from the University of Vienna, wearing silly hats, seeing Anna's band play for a small party and staying up until 6:00 AM of January 1st. What a day!
It began rather inauspiciously - like a good wine, it had to take time before it truly ripened into something really good. In this case, it took Katie until 3:30 in the afternoon to wake up (If you're reading this Katie, I'm sorry but I HAD to say that), but it actually worked out perfectly because we would both need the extra down time for what was in store for us that night.
Around 4:00 we took a walk down the street to see the work of a famous architect whose name I don't remember - but he was famous! He prided himself in doing odd-end architectural designs, such as designing gas stations in different and interesting ways, or in this case, a set of low-income housing apartments.
Note: not my picture.
We returned in time for dinner where we got to take in a whole slew of traditions - chili, pigs and ladybugs. Yeah, they don't seem like they have anything in common, but in the Esarey household they all make up an important part of the New Years tradition!
Every year they have chili for the New Year's Eve dinner, apparently because the first time they did it Katie liked the chili so much as a child that they decided it should be a tradition. Katie's grandma, who is from Chicago, kept on saying that the chili was really hot - and I agreed! It was really good though too.
The pigs and ladybugs are part of Austrian tradition that honors them as good luck symbols. Later on the tram we would see a bunch of little kids with pig costumes on. "Sylvester" as New Years Eve is called in German-speaking countries, is one of the most exciting holidays in Vienna and you can tell by the way the city bustles around in preparation for it.
After dinner we rushed our way to meet up with Anna, whose cover band was playing for a small New Year's Eve party.
The band was pretty good and Anna's singing was great, of course. They did a really good job with a lot of classic American rock songs, it was interesting to hear it from a bunch of rowdy Austrians enjoying their New Year's night. After the concert, me and Katie congratulated Anna before heading to a New Year's party that one of Katie's friends was hosting.
It wasn't a white-tie affair, but it was a silly-hat event, which meant that I obliged with one of Katie's hats - a great tribute to American awesomeness, if I do say so myself:
It was a very interesting night with a lot of fun moments. I hung out with a pair of Brazilians who I had actually met the night before - they were in Vienna for the last two days before they head to Germany to study German law for a month (apparently it's very similar to Brazilian law). At one point, the Brazilian guy fell over and everyone was worried that he was injured, but he was fine. One of my memories from the night was having a discussion with the Brazilian girl (I wish I knew their names...it sounds weird to refer to them like that lol) about weird dance moves - I showed her the "churning the butter" while she showed me the "cutting up the sushi".
Around midnight we walked down the street and watched the firework show. While Austrians don't kiss at midnight (well some do, but it's not as much a tradition as in the U.S.) they do waltz, so I enlisted the help from one of Katie's friends, Jana (pronounced "Yana") and learned how to do the waltz at the onset of the New Year! It was a great way to start the year off!
After I had a very hilarious set of moments when I tried to light three Viennese fireworks, only to watch all three of them blow up in the ground and cause a giant "explosion", it was finally time to leave.
(VIDEO OF FIREWORK EXPLOSION HERE: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150440959087811)
We returned to her friend's house and partied like it was 1969!
And of course, I got back at 6:00 AM and slept until 10:00 before getting up. I don't know why I do it to myself, but I honestly can't sleep much later than ten or eleven, no matter where I'm at or how late I stayed up.
Oh, and my German vocabulary has added: Bitte. So now that's two words. Woohoo!
In my defense (I'm the brazilian guy!) I didn't fall because I was drunk, I fell because my knee is a big piece of old crap XD. And Isa (The Brazilian Girl) was surprised that you remembered to talk about us in you trip-blog. Lol.
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