Even more unusual...

Silvester -or New year's eve as it is properly called in English - is traditionally the biggest party in the year. But why it so? Why do people celebrate it so much? Why do they get so crazy about it? Well I remember many New year's eves, and I associate them with nice memories. But strangely enough, all I can recall are bits and pieces. Before I turned teenage years I had celebrated it somewhere in mountains on our family sky trips. Lot of fireworks and possibility to stay up late. Later on I focused more on my friends and I wanted to spent this "magic" moment of the change of the year number with as many of them as possible. We were usually drunk and were doing crazy things -that's what we called fun and full enjoyment, sometimes even real life! But it was actually the very opposite: the wildest proof of immaturity. At least that's how I look at it now which doesn't mean I condemn anybody for doing so...

For last 3 years I realized that things are getting little silly and I felt that it's more and more not exactly my cup of tea. But years of "practise" were not so easily to be abolished. Oh, how I remember the New year's eve 3 years ago. I was with Efka at that time and she had been seriously sick for more than a week. I wanted to be sympathetic so I heroically professed that I am not going to drink! Well, good effort, but soon after we came to her friends apartment in Trnava I palled up with one chap who offered me a Fernet -to make long story short I ended up quite drunk... maybe not as much as years before, but still... no wonder Efka was angry. And so were I! Not because I had been drinking, but because I had done something what I have had said that I'm not going to do. (wow! If this sentence is flawless then I eat cow chips! Who can let me know?)

The next year, or last year it was much easier because I hadn't been drinking for a while and there were other people around me that didn't drink as well. So finally after approx. 13 years first sober New year's eve!

And this year, you wouldn't recognise me: I went to bed at 11 pm!!! Well it was midnight in Slovakia, so what? I had spent a whole week with my parents (see the article below) and really didn't feel like travelling two days to London (or Plymouth) and back and spending at least 100 quids and all this just for one night. In stead I had spent the night in meditations. I had sent loving kindness to all living creatures at eleven and soon after was sound asleep. The next day -first day of the year - I continued in meditation... what a great way to stick to Slovak idiom: "how on the new year so on the whole year" meaning what you do on the first day of the year you will do during the whole year (do they have any equivalent to this expression?). This was truly a celebration for me, and I'm very glad I had done it!

P.S. it's not true that there is no snow here... the pictures are actual

P.S. I would appropriate English comments because this article was (also) part of my studies...