Silvester

New Year's last year was spent in Turkestan, a tiny desert Kazakh village near the Uzbek border known for its camels and preserved moque/medressa. Mike and I were sent back to our hotel before 00:00 by police who feared for our safety, so it was very low-key celebration. We decided to do the opposite this year and flew to Berlin to ring in the new year by the Brandenburg Gate with a million other people.

The time to get a new Turkish visa coincidentally fell just at New Year's, so we made the most of a day off from work and searched for the cheapest international destination we could fly to. We were almost set on Riga when I found tickets at half the price to Berlin. I immediately wrote to my friend Caroline, a fellow exchange student with me in Finland, whose parents live near Berlin and asked if she'd be home for the holidays. She said we could stay with her so we set off on another adventure.

Istanbul winter is mild so we packed all the warm things we could find since we'd read that it was below zero Celsius and snowy. We arrived in the middle of the night but found our way via public transport and a path through the forest to Caroline's house, where she met us before we even had to ring the bell and awaken her parents.

We took a short nap to recover from our trip and then, after a wonderfully filling German breakfast, Caroline took us into Berlin to give me the grand tour. We went to Alexanderplatz first, where we found that the world clock had Central Asian countries listed that are generally missing from any world summary like a weather forecast or a currency converter.



It was cold and snowy, but we managed to visit most of the sites worth seeing- the cathedral, Reichstag, Unter den Linden, the Brandenburg Gate and of course H&M! We hung out in various train stations trying to get warm and had a great dinner at an Asian fast food place at the Hauptbahnhof. Then we sucked it up and walked over to Brandenburg Gate to start the party.




The slightly snowy paths and roads turned to awful brown slush due to all the people walking to and fro, but since we are geniuses and put thick plastic bags on our feet before putting our shoes on, we managed to stay dry and warmish until almost midnight. It definitely made the night better! We wandered around stopping off at times for food from some outdoor stands and drinks, which considering it was New Year's in Berlin, were fairly reasonably priced. There were 2 heated tents that we visited whenever it got too cold outside. There was dancing and drinking in the packed tents and it was a fun way to pass the time and beat the weather.

Around 11:30 it was time to leave the warmth of the tent and stand in the slush on the street with all the other people. Caroline had stashed a bottle of sparkling wine in her bag so we drank that and hopped around trying to stay warm. We were too far from the stage to hear anything but a handy dandy countdown clock appeared on the giant TV screens so we were sure not to miss the arrival of the new decade. People celebrated, kissed, drank, shouted, and a fireworks show started.





We documented our New Year's on a silly machine that printed out a Berlin New Year's souvenir postcard:



The rest of our time we did some more sightseeing and stopped at the beautiful Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, Checkpoint Charlie, the East Side Gallery (the stretch of the Berlin Wall remaining) and did some shopping at H&M. We also saw Avatar in 3D, which was a super end to our quick Berlin trip. I'm sure that 2010 will be even better than 2009, even though 2009 was pretty darn awesome.