My Christmas holidays in Pieter will stay in good memory as I spent a very different one than usual… on the 24th the exchange student crowd that stayed organized a dinner in Krokodile, a Russian restaurant close to our place. We had a very cozy evening though Nico and me embarrassed ourselves a little (actually it was to a certain degree my fault ;-) ) first we came like over half an hour late and then we had no gifts to share though Prune told me before about it… sorry guys (and merci beaucoup filles françaises for the nice Christmas gifts we received though, a great memory!). Then at 12 we missed the midnight mess as a Russian guy (pretty tipsy…) offered our table two bottles of vodka for the “nice ladies and my European friends!”. Of course we did not want to offend him so we stayed a little more and shared the gift… finally Nico’s and mine Christmas gift for the others was an invitation for a short party in our place. The night continued as unusual as it was with a visit to a drum’n’bass party in the bomb shelter of Gribodoev - it was great fun but I think I prefer to spend my Christmas eve in a more traditional way from now on!
The rest of the week was kind of annoying: I could not go travelling as planned (postponed my trip to Tallin to the end of January) due to sudden budget restrictions and finally I felt sick (thanks to Sasha and others for taking care!)… so I spend the week rather laid back.
The New Year eve was one of the highlights of my Russian adventure: we were invited to Sasha & Andreij for a barbeque! The guests were a very diverse group of people that we had a lot of fun with! I have to apologise at this point for making you all speak English, French and German instead of having a good chat in your language… but yeah our Russian skills have rather decreased than improved :-(. At midnight there was the decision to either have an emotional moment during the speech of Vladimir or to go out for the firework – we made a compromise: first we listened to Vladimir (though I understood a shit and it was not too emotional as Mr. Putin is not the most skilled rhetoric) then we went to the square in front of the Hermitage and celebrated the new year with a couple of thousand other Russians!
A great experience: I have not met so many friendly and outgoing Russians as during this hour on the square! The evening continued with more grilled meat and some wine (my antibiotics cure prevented me from having too many drinks!) and ended with a short visit to the party in our former dorm at Shevcenko 25.
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