Joshua Zamrycki's Weblog

As is the tradition in my life, I was with friends last night to ring in the new year. And as is the tradition here in Spain, I marked each of the 12 strokes of midnight by placing a grape in my mouth and then washing the whole thing down with a glass of cava (Catalan Champaign) and kissing everyone. A good time was had by all.

Jan and I arrived at Jo’s house around 9:30ish to partake in the potluck dinner that was planned for us and another eight people that Jan works with at the British Council. I know what you’re thinking: “Oh no! Not another English teacher party!” I was thinking the same. But everyone there was really cool and we had a great time. Jan and I prepared part of the dessert: fresh pineapple slices liberally soaked in Cointreu – a big hit. An equally big dessert hit was the mysterious apple/caramel/sugar pie that was allegedly made by some Argentinean woman down the block from Mark which took over two days to prepare!

After dinner, we had our grapes at midnight and then everyone was itching to play the quiz that I had prepared. It was a “Name That Tune” quiz which I lifted from Charlie’s 1st birthday party but I added some more songs for the occasion. There were 42 songs in all. Having equal numbers in the house, and thinking it completely fair, they decided to play “boys vs. girls”. The girls subsequently handed the boys their asses on a silver platter. The poor schmucks never stood a chance.

There’s an interesting side-note to the previous story: Jan was the only person in attendance last night who was also at Charlie’s birthday. So she therefore had obviously done most of the quiz before. I didn’t think this would be a problem because I am familiar with Jan’s long-term memory skills. Everything would have gone off without a hitch if I hadn’t slipped up. You see, one of the songs on the quiz was Disco Inferno. I thought that it was performed by The Bee Gees (dammit, I still do). Well, everyone disagreed with me at both Charlie’s party and last night. So I stupidly said to Jan, “This is the same problem we had last time.” Stupid, I know. Only one person caught the remark and Jan was able to quickly lie straight to his face and swear that she had never heard the questions before. We escaped, but I am now afraid of Jan’s lying prowess.

The quiz ended, we listened to music, played Charades, drank and ate some more, and everyone headed home at around 5am. Jan and I walked home across town, passing revelers on the street all the way. There was the most beautiful sunrise this morning.