Happy New Year, everyone!
I had the most wonderful New Year. It took place in two parts:
Elaine, Eva, Sarah, Aarati, Roger and I all went into town to celebrate the New Year at about 20h 30. Having gotten in and wandered around for about an hour, we eventually made our way across the Pont Mont- Blanc and into the Vieille Ville and the Cathedral. They were playing salsa music by the lake, and there were stalls selling vin chaud, hot vegetable soup, and all manner of warm things. Then it started to rain, so we went to a little pub (called The King's Arms, hee); and sat there till about 23 00. While in the line for the bathroom, Sarah and I started talking to a guy from Brittany with an obsession about washing his hands, which was rather odd. He hated the feel of "dirty hands", and his hair, which was brown in the dark light of the pub, somehow became silver in the harsher light of the (unisex) sink. Three or four of us then realised that we had missed calls from Stephan, and rang him back to find out that he and Toby were at the Cathedral. A choir (or, more likely, a recording of a choir) was singing as we got down to the cathedral, and we met up with the boys to go to the Place Centrale, where there was a huge tent, more vin chaud, hot soup, a tent replete with disco lights and loud music, and a group of people waving immense banners which read "NON A 2007!!!". It amused me that they were protesting against the New Year, anyway. We danced in the Place until the New Year, and as the crowd got steadily larger and drunker, we got pushed around more and more. But it was SO much fun- the atmosphere was wonderful! Random strangers, all dancing together, happily shouting "Bonnes fêtes!" and "Bonne année!" to anyone who walked by. It was like a giant outdoor club. At about 10 to midnight we noticed about five people had climbed up onto the fountain, each with a bottle of champagne in his hand. At midnight the bottles were uncorked, and champagne flew through the air. Most of one bottle appeared to have landed on my and Toby's head; but we'd been prepared for it and I'd already kept my camera and scarf. Everyone was screaming, yelling, and dancing; shouts of "Bonne année!!!" flew through the air, and the champagne mixed with the rain coming down. It was GREAT.
Having then realised that it was 10 past midnight and we had a train at 0 21; we ran from the Old Town to Cornavin, but found out that we'd missed our train, which was highly annoying. We then called Stephan et al, and they took Roger to Coppet (my little town), where his car was parked; and he drove back to Geneva to pick us up. All in all, rather a waste of resources and time, but hey. We got to Roger's car at about 1 15; and proceeded to try and make our way to Jonathan's house, where we'd been expected at a house party for quite some time. I had one set of directions, but Stephan had given Roger another set, and they seemed much easier to follow, so we decided to go with those instructions instead. We are halfway there when my phone rings, and Eva is on the other line telling me "We went to Jonathan's house. And woke up his mother. Stephan went to the wrong house!" I should explain that the party was at the (untenanted) old house that Jon has just moved out of; and Stephan went to the house Jonathan is currently living in. So all the directions are useless, and we end up waiting at the French border for about 10 minutes before Stephan's little car comes along; and hey ho, off we are again, two cars driving into the dark French countryside in middle of nowhere France. After much calling back and forth, and a realisation on Stephan's part that he, in fact, has very little petrol left, we get to the right village (which was already something), then call Jonathan for more directions. We get there with difficulty, having turned up the wrong small lane, and having to reverse out; but we get there in the end at about 2 AM.
We get to Jon's, where his sister's friends have put on loud music, and are drinking copiously. Within five minutes Toby and I make friends with Olivier, who recommends that we drink the Martini and Coke, and we all settle down for a night of drinking, dancing and more drinking. At one point, Eva locks me and Toby in the garage with all the lights turned off. Toby puts Haribo crocodiles in my drink, I retaliate, we all dance to David Guetta, we go back to the garage to get more drink, everyone ends up talking in the garage, one of Jon's sister's friends comes in and starts saying what famous tennis player everyone looks like, more dancing, and then Stephan and I decided to make Pimms. He'd brought a bottle of Pimms, and there was about 70% of lemonade left in a Sprite bottle. The box on the Pimms said that the ratio of lemonade: Pimms should be about 3:1, so we filled the rest of the bottle up with Pimms and shook. Then I remembered that we always put fruit in when making it in Oxford, so we went in search of fruit and came back with a clementine, a large bowl of sangria with fruit in, and a fruit salad. Picking fruit out of the sangria and nibbling to try and tell what fruit it was proved to be a hit, so we did that for a while, then chucked the clementine in, after which we proceeded to treat the fruit salad the same way we treated the sangria. I then decided some watermelon liqueur should go in, so it did; after which Stephan thought it wasn't orange-y enough, so we found some apple juice and orange juice and that went in as well. Maybe we don't drink it that way in Oxford, but we had a lot of fun making it :) (taking copious sips all the while).
By 5 30 I was getting sleepy so Sarah, Eva and I made up beds in one of the empty rooms upstairs, but within 15 minutes, our entire group was in there. Dialogue consisted mostly of the following "Who's that?" "My leg."; and "What's that?!" "My FOOT!", as well as a lot of giggling. Toby also decided to stick sellotape on everyone. In fact, when I had a shower after getting home this morning, I found sellotape on my back. We didn't go to bed till 6 30. It was a brilliant night. :D
Happy New Year, everyone!
Elaine, Eva, Sarah, Aarati, Roger and I all went into town to celebrate the New Year at about 20h 30. Having gotten in and wandered around for about an hour, we eventually made our way across the Pont Mont- Blanc and into the Vieille Ville and the Cathedral. They were playing salsa music by the lake, and there were stalls selling vin chaud, hot vegetable soup, and all manner of warm things. Then it started to rain, so we went to a little pub (called The King's Arms, hee); and sat there till about 23 00. While in the line for the bathroom, Sarah and I started talking to a guy from Brittany with an obsession about washing his hands, which was rather odd. He hated the feel of "dirty hands", and his hair, which was brown in the dark light of the pub, somehow became silver in the harsher light of the (unisex) sink. Three or four of us then realised that we had missed calls from Stephan, and rang him back to find out that he and Toby were at the Cathedral. A choir (or, more likely, a recording of a choir) was singing as we got down to the cathedral, and we met up with the boys to go to the Place Centrale, where there was a huge tent, more vin chaud, hot soup, a tent replete with disco lights and loud music, and a group of people waving immense banners which read "NON A 2007!!!". It amused me that they were protesting against the New Year, anyway. We danced in the Place until the New Year, and as the crowd got steadily larger and drunker, we got pushed around more and more. But it was SO much fun- the atmosphere was wonderful! Random strangers, all dancing together, happily shouting "Bonnes fêtes!" and "Bonne année!" to anyone who walked by. It was like a giant outdoor club. At about 10 to midnight we noticed about five people had climbed up onto the fountain, each with a bottle of champagne in his hand. At midnight the bottles were uncorked, and champagne flew through the air. Most of one bottle appeared to have landed on my and Toby's head; but we'd been prepared for it and I'd already kept my camera and scarf. Everyone was screaming, yelling, and dancing; shouts of "Bonne année!!!" flew through the air, and the champagne mixed with the rain coming down. It was GREAT.
Having then realised that it was 10 past midnight and we had a train at 0 21; we ran from the Old Town to Cornavin, but found out that we'd missed our train, which was highly annoying. We then called Stephan et al, and they took Roger to Coppet (my little town), where his car was parked; and he drove back to Geneva to pick us up. All in all, rather a waste of resources and time, but hey. We got to Roger's car at about 1 15; and proceeded to try and make our way to Jonathan's house, where we'd been expected at a house party for quite some time. I had one set of directions, but Stephan had given Roger another set, and they seemed much easier to follow, so we decided to go with those instructions instead. We are halfway there when my phone rings, and Eva is on the other line telling me "We went to Jonathan's house. And woke up his mother. Stephan went to the wrong house!" I should explain that the party was at the (untenanted) old house that Jon has just moved out of; and Stephan went to the house Jonathan is currently living in. So all the directions are useless, and we end up waiting at the French border for about 10 minutes before Stephan's little car comes along; and hey ho, off we are again, two cars driving into the dark French countryside in middle of nowhere France. After much calling back and forth, and a realisation on Stephan's part that he, in fact, has very little petrol left, we get to the right village (which was already something), then call Jonathan for more directions. We get there with difficulty, having turned up the wrong small lane, and having to reverse out; but we get there in the end at about 2 AM.
We get to Jon's, where his sister's friends have put on loud music, and are drinking copiously. Within five minutes Toby and I make friends with Olivier, who recommends that we drink the Martini and Coke, and we all settle down for a night of drinking, dancing and more drinking. At one point, Eva locks me and Toby in the garage with all the lights turned off. Toby puts Haribo crocodiles in my drink, I retaliate, we all dance to David Guetta, we go back to the garage to get more drink, everyone ends up talking in the garage, one of Jon's sister's friends comes in and starts saying what famous tennis player everyone looks like, more dancing, and then Stephan and I decided to make Pimms. He'd brought a bottle of Pimms, and there was about 70% of lemonade left in a Sprite bottle. The box on the Pimms said that the ratio of lemonade: Pimms should be about 3:1, so we filled the rest of the bottle up with Pimms and shook. Then I remembered that we always put fruit in when making it in Oxford, so we went in search of fruit and came back with a clementine, a large bowl of sangria with fruit in, and a fruit salad. Picking fruit out of the sangria and nibbling to try and tell what fruit it was proved to be a hit, so we did that for a while, then chucked the clementine in, after which we proceeded to treat the fruit salad the same way we treated the sangria. I then decided some watermelon liqueur should go in, so it did; after which Stephan thought it wasn't orange-y enough, so we found some apple juice and orange juice and that went in as well. Maybe we don't drink it that way in Oxford, but we had a lot of fun making it :) (taking copious sips all the while).
By 5 30 I was getting sleepy so Sarah, Eva and I made up beds in one of the empty rooms upstairs, but within 15 minutes, our entire group was in there. Dialogue consisted mostly of the following "Who's that?" "My leg."; and "What's that?!" "My FOOT!", as well as a lot of giggling. Toby also decided to stick sellotape on everyone. In fact, when I had a shower after getting home this morning, I found sellotape on my back. We didn't go to bed till 6 30. It was a brilliant night. :D
Happy New Year, everyone!