¡Feliz Año!

Happy 2007! Plus a few days!

First I have to start of by saying that I hate the electrical system here in Spain. Lightbulbs burn out at the rate of several a month, and outlets spark as you plug things in.

Anyway, time for me to tell you about my New Years Eve! I went to Paula's (my Tandem/Language partner) friend David's house. The night before, a few of us went shopping for food. I was a bit confused. I could understand most of what they were saying, but because I still don't understand food specific terms and ideas, I spent most of the time just standing like a deer in headlights.

As you already know, the next night was New Years Eve. There were 12 people in total, though I only met 10 of them: Paula, David, Miriam, Anabel, Ramon, Eva, Marina, Miguel, Marta, and ME (ok, so 9 people then). I got there around 8:30 pm, and we had to carry groceries between houses. Once that was done, time to start preparing the food! Since I had no idea still what they were making, I just waited in the living room for everything to be finished.

Here is the food before being utterly destroyed by hungry students.

Ok, so after just sitting, talking, eating, and waiting for 2007, the moment finally arrived. After deciding on which channel to watch (funny, we ended up watching the countdown from Valencia), everyone grabbed their grapes. Grapes? Yep, grapes. The tradition in Spain is to eat 12 grapes for each of 12 chimes that sound after the new year commences. Twelve grapes for 12 months of good luck. So, if you want, try eating 12 grapes in 12 seconds, 1 per second... not very easy. There was no counting down to the New Year... instead, everyone was mentally prepping for the grape task at hand. Looking around the room, everyone had a grape already halfway in his or her mouth... shouldn't that be cheating?

Happy New Year! Chime... grape... chime... grape... chime... you get the picture. Here is the aftermath.

No, she is not about to throw up, she just has grapes in her mouth.

After that, hugs, handshakes, and kisses on the cheeks all around. Yelling (after you finish swallowing the grapes) "¡Feliz Año!"-- "Happy Year."

Cell phone systems in Spain supposdly crash due to the large volume of calls made on New Years Eve.

What better way to ring in the New Year than singing Karaoke, right? Ok, so it wasn't karaoke, it was Singstar, a videogame for the Playstation 2, and boy were they excited to play it. Jumping up and down, screaming Singstar... I was scared. The game matches your intonation, notes, and rythm and gives you a score at the end on how well you sang the song. The game has 30 songs, 25-26 of which were in Spanish, and that I had never heard of. However, when it came to "Paint it Black" by the Rolling Stones, I rocked the house. No one could compete!

Marta and David duke it out to decide who will become the true Singstar!

After that, we decided to head into the center of the city. On the way, the girls spotted a semi-drunk, very sad girl trying to call someone in a phone booth. The girls helped her out, and as such did their good turn for the year. Phew, good thing to get that out of the way. After the drama unfolded, we made it into the city center and went to Pinball... a club/bar which (that night) had a lot of broken glass on the floor. After Pinball, we tried to go to another place, but it was closing or something, so we all decided to head home. A few of us took a Taxi back to David's, and by the time we arrived, it was 7 am.

Yep... 7 am. I said bye to the few who were left, and decided to try and take the public tram system home. It supposedly starts at 7, but it starts at the other end of the tracks... meaning that I was able to walk home before a single tram passed in my direction. Grrr. Total time spent: 50 minutes (20 waiting for tram, 30 walking). So I made it home just before 8 am my time, and decided to call home. I called them right after the stroke of midnight... I think they were pleasantly surprised. I then made a few more phone calls, but I was really tired so I decided to go to sleep rather than continue my phone madness.

I have as such been spending the last few days trying to get back onto a normal sleep schedule. I think I am almost there, luckily.

Ok, this blog is already too long. I was going to do a Year In Review, but I think I will hold off til next weeks blog. To leave you all, here are some more pictures of the night. Hope you like them!

 

Left to Right, Top to Bottom:

• From left to right, front to back: Someone's Hand, Paula, Miriam, Anabel, David.
• Left to Right: Eva, Miguel, Miriam, Marina.
• Ramon and Miguel discuss the meaning of life and its consequences, or something, I don't know.
• Pouring Champagne (Cava) to celebrate the New Year.