[VIENNA, Austria]
New Years eve was an experience! I think it was an indication of my year to come, unexpected, bizarre yet great!

Firstly Gernot and I walked through the city centre to experience the Vienna style of NYE.... there were wooden huts erected where one could buy gluh wine or alcoholic punch, whilst take in the free concerts that were being played in the centre. It was again very cold at night and the tourists (ala me) where easy to spot...they were rapped from head to toe and still looked cold.

Our private party invitation with Thomas fell through so we took our chances with what was our best option, Gernots cousin, an ex-fashion designer student, was having a party at her house. I immediately pointed out that fashion students are mostly girls and if Gernot's cousin wasnt cute then surely one of her friends was. We had no time to lose to get there in time. Her place was in a poorer, slum end of Vienna and as we walked the streets, losing our way in the cold to find her house, people took delight at annoying the f*** out of us by throwing firecrackers from windows, at our feet, in sub way exits etecetera. A war zone! So it was with great relief as we entered the house at 11:50pm.

I walked into the living room with many expectations only to be greated by 15 Negerians, 2 of whom where women and one of these was breast feeding......what a surprise! Better still, at the strike of the hour, instead of the Nigerians shouting "Happy New Year" they formed a circle, lit a candle and prayed. One young man went aside in the hall to pray by himself. Admist prayer he received an SMS, which he cooly checked and continued praying, then another SMS, which he again cooly checked and then continued praying.....this repeated itself for a number of times! At the end of the prayer they all got up and in single file left the party, without so much as a good bye.....well, there was no party to hang around for any more.

Thanks to Thomas's guidance Gernot and I found ourselves in the slum end of Vienna in some strange pub. It was small, mostly young people with no interest in dress and the entire place lacked any sense of atmosphere. We were sucking a beer as Gernot was spewing over how bad our NYE turned out to be....but not to be put off I dragged him on to the dance floor and we didnt look back since. The music was grunge but with a good beat and the crowd, drunk as they may be, made the most of the tiny dance floor. We could have happily danced all night if it was not for the fact that the speakers blew up around 3am and we took this as an omen to leave as we had a 10 hr drive back to Holland on the same day. We had a great time afterall!



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