Frohes Neues!

I'm quite certain that 2010 was the most explosive neues Jahr I have ever celebrated. Stores in Germany are only allowed to sell fireworks a few days before New Year's Eve and, once legal, sell them they do. At first I was confused when I started hearing explosions early in the morning of the 31st, but the surprise soon exploded as the BANG BOOM KERBLAMing became more and more steady as the day went along. We started off the evening at a potluck party at a friend of Kassia's where American and Mexican made up the cultural ratio pretty evenly. It was quite fun to meet new people, share a meal, and celebrate with them. As the year dwindled down to its last hour, we joined the hundreds of hundreds of people at the harbor to await the new year. The journey there was wrought with ice, alcohol, and explosives, which... kept everything interesting.
The harbor was just as we had been warned - a massive hoard of cold, yet happy drunk people setting off fireworks wherever they felt like it. Joshua ended up throwing himself in front of Kassia and I a couple times to protect us from things that were about to explode in the crowd. What a hero.
Once my cell told me it was 00:00, the real chaos began. The sky was packed with color and fire and smoke and the sounds of people cheering and horns from all the boats in the harbor being blown at full force. It was dangerous, fo' sho', but the atmosphere was so joyful that you couldn't care too much about the negatives. It was really and truly a blast. (Har har har.) The best part is that now I don't ever have to go again. : ) I took the first picture and stole second and third from a Hamburg newspaper website. The panoramas give you a better view of what the harbor looked like for hours and hours that night.
The days since the new year arrived have been pretty relaxed with little excursions here and there. One of us has spent a good chunk of time sleeping in while the other has been in class and rehearsal and doing homework. (I'll let you guess who is who.) It's been unnaturally cold here in Hamburg and we've seen snow pretty much every day. The Alster (lake) has also frozen over, which it apparently hasn't done in years. Yesterday we visited the St. Nikolaikirche (the bombed out church/memorial) and I snapped a few pictures of beautiful beautiful Hamburg in the snow. If you click on the Rathaus picture below (city hall), you can see the big Christmas tree that's still glowing in the middle of the smaller section of the Alster.


Lastnight before rehearsal, I went for a solo stroll around the Alster to take pictures of my favorite city view. Try as one might, there is no possible way to capture the real beauty of this scene. Oh, Hamburg, how I love you!

Speaking of rehearsals, the play is going well well well! We've been having at least one full run-through a week for the last three weeks and, as anticipated, they keep getting better and better. That's a good thing for sure, as we open in (EEK!) just under two weeks. At this point I'm not too nervous about it. I've just about mastered strutting around in heels, which was my biggest personal concern. Everything else is easy. (I kid.) Hopefully I'll keep having good things to report - Oh! Such as the fact that the police finally came and kicked the last few squatters out of our performance space during the break. Yesssssss.

And, of course, here's the traditional baked good photo, this time taken by Joshua as I was clearly hard at work. Pumpkin raisin chocolate chunk cookies. Nom nom nom.