A New Year's Eve to Remember...

Happy 2008!!!

Okay, so I'm a little late as it's already the 3rd (depending on what time zone you're in...), but I know you're all dying to hear about my New Year's Eve. And if you're not, get excited, because you're in for a treat. Well, maybe that depends on what you consider "a treat." But it was interesting, that's for sure. I'll divide this into three parts: The Grapes, The Drunken Crowd (and a 70 year old), and The Kiss. You can read them all or just one or two.

Part 1: The Grapes

The tradition here is that when the new year comes, the large clock in the city center strikes 12 bells, and you eat one grape for each bell. If you finish all 12 (it really is quite difficult if the grapes have seeds) you're supposed to have good luck. I don't believe in luck, but it is fun to try to down 12 grapes as fast as you can.

Well I forgot to buy grapes ahead of time, so on New Year's Eve I went to the grocery store to buy some. Apparently everybody else, their mothers, brother, sisters, and dogs all had the same idea because the lines at the store wrapped through all of the aisles (did I spell it right, Lissy?). So I gave up. But LUCKILY one of the little shop-n-go type stores had some grapes and I didn't even have to wait in line!
Okay, so maybe that part wasn't SO interesting, but it's about to get better...

Part 2: The Drunken Crowd (and a 70 year old)

So there's a big clock in the middle of town which is kind of like the equivalent of Times Square in NYC. The whole country watches the countdown on TV, and thousands of people are in the plaza, all waiting to celebrate together. So Katie and I thought, "this is our first New Year's Eve here - we should go! It'll be fun!"

I don't mind crowds. Not even large crowds.

I don't mind drunk people either. They're kind of annoying and they made some poor choices, but I can tolerate their presence.

But what I do mind - THOUSANDS of drunk people. Yes. THOUSANDS. All in one tiny space. We got to the plaza a little early but it was already so full we could barely reach a place to see the clock. Next thing we know, we're being pushed into a sea of drunkards, all yelling, pushing, drinking...we thought maybe we could get up against a building or something so that they could just go past us, but no. We couldn't do anything but go with the flow. No matter how many times we tried to turn around, we couldn't. It wasn't long before I thought "maybe this was a bad idea."

Somehow the crowd pushed us up to a guard rail, so we were able to stop there and let the crowd move past us. A security guard was standing there and I told him "I don't want to be here - is there anyway I can get past?" He looked at me and smiled so sweetly and said, "nope." So we just stood there. People kept pushing us into the guardrail and we had to hang on to keep from getting pushed back into the flow of people.

Finally some big strong sober guys had the same thought we did: "I don't want to be here" and started pushing their way back out of the crowd. The security guard pointed and told me, "follow them." So we did. We hopped in the middle of the guys and let them be our body guards. Finally we reached the back of the crowd, with about 15 minutes before midnight. It wasn't so crowded there so we thought, "let's just stand here." But it wasn't long before more throngs of drunken party goers arrived and once again we were being crowded and pushed. So before it could reach the point of terror like before, we moved back. And more people came. And there was shouting and angry drunkards and crazy people with their toddlers on their shoulders. So we left. With 10 minutes to go, we left.

This is Katie and I while we were pushed up against the guardrail. The security guard thought it was funny that we were taking a picture in our moment of terror:

We walked up the street and saw a little café where they were watching the event on TV and decided to go in there. There only about 10 people inside, most of whom were getting ready to celebrate a birthday as the clock struck midnight. This old man was very concerned as to whether or not we had grapes and was so relieved when he saw our cans of "12 Grapes of Luck." They were already peeled and pitted! So the clock struck 12, we ate our grapes, and next thing we know all these strangers are giving us kisses (on the cheek - that's the way you greet people here) and drinks and food and this little old lady comes over and tells us in broken English, "I am 70 years old today."

And then we watched Juanes on TV. Anybody who knows me knows that I'm in love with him.



That was a great way to start the night. I say "start" because...

Part 3: The Kiss

The church down the street from our house was having a New Year's Eve party...that started at 1 am. That's right. STARTING at 1 am. So we left and went to the church ready to celebrate with some friends all night long. I'll skip the details and get right to the good stuff.

I've already told you that we greet people here with two kisses, one on each cheek. Sometimes we joke about "what if you miss?" With so many people from different cultures (the French, Spanish, Italians, South Americans all have some sort of "kissing" greeting) sometimes people forget which side to kiss first. It makes for some interesting encounters.

So we're getting ready to start and people are coming in greeting each other, and this one guy comes in and we say hi and go in for the two kisses. Everything seemed normal at first, but on the second kiss, somehow he didn't quite make it all the way to my cheek...it was more sort of a "half-mouth half-cheek" kiss. I must admit - I've never been kissed before so it was quite a strange sensation! We kind of looked at each other like "do I say anything? Naahh" and went on greeting other people. I'm still not even sure if he realized that he got part of my mouth.

I don't have any pictures to go with this one. Sorry.

Can we say "awkward??" Yes. That is exactly how I felt. Awkward. I'd been saving that one for someone special! But I guess it's okay since it was technically only about 1/3rd of my mouth. But the other 2/3rds...I'm saving those for a really good one. =)

And then I went home and went to sleep at 6:30am.

And I'll leave you with that. Congratulations for making it this far, to all who may have read this ridiculously long post in it's entirety.