The Crazy Duck Hostel was the place to be New Years eve, let me tell you. You should read Abby’s blog for some idea of the people staying here. But it doesn’t convey the full bizarreness of this apartment full of drunken crazy people who don’t know each other, speaking in a very confusing variety of languages and accents. The Australians were definitely running the show. They are absolutely insane. They are also at least 30 years old, and I can’t really figure out why they’re just roaming about Eurasia getting drunk every night and engaging in unwelcome displays of PDA, but they were good people to have around to create a festive atmosphere I guess. The Ukrainians are much more quiet, and I think they were sort of intimidated by the Austrailians. They really are very exhausting to converse with though. Do you like Whitney Houston? How much does public transportation cost? Did you know that everything is better in Kiev? What about the Simpsons? Oh, how about basketball? I was relieved when they discovered the Brazilians and started plying them with questions instead.
You know in elementary school when you learn about peer pressure? They need to add a unit on Nationalistic Ukrainians Pressure. Because that’s much harder to resist. “But this is special Ukrainian red champagne! It is the best in the world! And this is Ukrainian beer! It is no mere Russian beer!” And they were very sweet and serious.
At 11:30 we all headed out on the street, to Nevsky Prospect. It was the most awesome thing ever, except Chizhik Pizhik. The metro was packed with this united mass of celebrators, and every once in a while everyone would just start yelling and cheering on the escalators, and everyone was so cheerful it was hard to believe they were Russians. And then on Nevsky Prospect there was a big tv screen and Putin gave an address that I didn’t really listen to but it was awesome that we were all listening to an address by Putin. And then the bells rang midnight and everyone drank champagne on the street and yelling Happy New Year to everyone. And then just roamed around yelling happy new year to random people and dancing about. There was a parade of some kind, and the Ukrainians made us all jump on the back of one of the floats. Abby and Natasha and I only did this for a few seconds and then ran away; I don’t know how long the Ukrainians resisted the dancing girls yelling at them to get off. Anyway, I’ve never seen so many people.
Today we went out walking on Nevsky, and I’ve never seen it quiet and peaceful before. The whole time we’ve been here it has been packed with last-minute holiday shoppers and tourists taking pictures and such. Today everything was closed and it was very strange.
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