Caviar. Crab. Champagne.

Sounds like New Year's to me.
Or Silvester since I'm in Austria now :)

I would like to say sorry that I've been a ghost for the last few months, but I promise I'm still alive.  I have moved into my second host family's house and things are going great.  We had a lovely Christmas and as you can tell, New Year's was also great.

On the 31st we drove to a nearby mountain in the morning and took about an hour hike up the mountain.  Usually when you pass people, everyone greets each other.  When you pass them in the streets, or in the hall at school, or anywhere else you would typically use a formal greeting.  However "once you make it higher than a 1000 meters, everyone is considered equal.  We're all hikers up there."  So I learned a few things and made it to the top of the mountain without any injuries.  (That is probably only because there was no ice or snow to slow me down.)  At the top we had a quick lunch and then found a much more interesting route to take down.  This one had lots of ice to slip on, and we sure made use of it quite often.  Not to mention the mud that was waiting on the other side of the ice for us to fall into... great times.

When we arrived back home, I took a quick shower and got ready for that night.  One of my classmates was having a party and I had promised him and his neighbor that I would help them to set up and that I would bring the brownies that my AMAZING mother sent me so we could bake them!  His parents had offered for us to eat with them instead of eating chili later with everyone else, so we gladly accepted.  However, I didn't realize what we would be having.  And yes, our appetizers were boiled eggs with caviar and a type of crab meat spread.  Usually I like crab, but that is when it is in it's whole form and not a type of pasty spread.  However I survived and the main course was much much better.  Spaghetti with REAL crab meat :)  There was lots of champagne and many toasts for the new year and at 7:00 people began to show up, so we all went down to the cellar.  At midnight we returned upstairs to the back patio to countdown (in German), drink a glass of punsch, and do the waltz as soon as the countdown was finished.  And of course we had to pop the necessary fireworks...