New Year

New Years came and went, but the celebrations continue. That's pretty much all I have to say about New Year in Ukraine. My host sister told me they celebrate for 13 days, and I didn't believe. Now I do.

My host sister had all her friends over to ring in the New Year. They didn't even come over until eleven o'clock at night. That should have been my first indication that it was going to be an all night affair.

There was no Dick Clark to help us ring in 2006, but we managed. Actually, here the president comes on TV and addresses the nation 5 minutes before midnight. Then, without the fanfare of a ball dropping, the New Year arrives.

Yulia, my sister, invited about a dozen of her friends over. There was a table full of food that had been devoured by the end of the night. When I can, I hope to post some pictures because it was a pretty impressive spread. The drinking started at midnight for us, and for Yulia and her friends, it continued until ten o'clock the next morning. I managed not to get drunk, which was amazing considering how persistent they were at pouring shots of vodka. In all, I think 15 bottles of vodka were consumed. It was pretty incredible. People were pretty drunk.

We sat around eating, drinking, playing with sparklers, eating, drinking, eating and drinking until 3:30 in the morning. Then we headed to the center of town where people were gathered by the New Year's tree. There were a lot of people out gathered by the tree, lots of families and young kids. It was 5:30 before I crawled into bed. I was really tired. Yulia and her friends partied on for about five more hours, but I just couldn't do it. I'm not Ukrianian.

The next day, the toasting started again at lunch time. I couldn't believe that anyone would still want to drink, but as they tell me, it's Ukrainian tradition. There was more drinking, which I more less managed to get out of. I only was obliged to take a couple shots, which actually -- coupled with utter exhaustion -- made me a little weepy and I had to go take a long walk and pull myself together. Thankfully, I don't think anyone noticed.

Since New Years, I have been with Yulia to a slew of gatherings that all involve eating and drinking. It's fun; it's also a lot of work to not get drunk. I don't really care to drink as much as they do and sometimes it takes all my energy to say no, or to say "choot-choot" (a little). Her friends are nice though, very eager to make me feel at home with them, so that's nice. They tell me that they are my Ukrainian family, so that's nice too.

We still have Old New Year to celebrate, and then after that, I'm sure there will be some other occassion to get together and eat and drink. That's just kind of how it's done over here.