White New Year's

What a wonderful time we had out in the middle of nature, near Enniskerry!


I was meeting Federica and the rest at 7:30pm at Heuston station, and by recommendation of the bus driver, I had a pint to kill time until the meeting time.

Some great people from CouchSurfing got together last night to spend New Year's together. Two carfuls of people made it out to a hostel in Enniskerry... with no cars. Or, to be precise, with a single car, but rather than being on it, we had to push it on the slippery snow!



We finally made it, made the necessary introductions, checked in an hour after the reception's normal closing time, and headed to the kitchen to prepare our New Year's Eve meal. We were done cooking about 20 minutes before midnight XD


Some people weren't done eating their savory food when midnight arrived, but still all of us passed the year in the Catalan (or Spanish) way: eating 12 grapes to the sound of the church bell. Of course we were nowhere near a church or any kind of bell, so we democratically played the bells taking turns, one strike per person, clockwise : )

That turned out to be pretty fun, but definitely easier than in when in the old times I would do it with my family or friends: to the sound of actual bells (no delays allowed!), and eating non-modified grapes with seeds... Because seedless grapes just make it too easy ; )

We all passed the test and arrived to this new year together, so we toasted (though no champagne was found in the room). After some chatting and listening to bad quality music over bad quality radio waves, we moved to the living room, lit a fire and told shared stories, after an unsuccessful trial of tale-reading. Falling asleep on the couches one by one, we ended up moving to our beds at around 3am.

The full moon was beautiful and illuminated everything on sight (when you managed to open your eyes after falling asleep with your contact lenses in). The mountains, the trees, every single element covered in snow... it was a magical night. And, interestingly, that show of nature observed from the balcony-type of hallway to the rooms reminded me of the spectacle of the jungle near Iquitos this last summer, after a session of ayahuasca under the full moon.


Today, on the first day if the year, we got up, checked out, ate breakfast (coffee and left overs from last night and fantastic pies and pancakes freshly cooked this morning), over a long, very interesting conversation about language, culture, tradition and innovation. We then went for a stroll outside the hostel.

We had a nice time by a couple of abandoned vans and cottage totally mingled in with vegetation : )





Back to the hostel, those who hadn't stuffed themselves with pancakes an hour or two earlier, ate lunch with more left overs from last night, over a food-related conversation including Ferran Adrià and a restaurant in Berlin where all waiters and waitresses are blind and everything is dark so that you can experience food (and more) in a different way, which derived into a conversation about things you can do in a place like Berlin.

Since we decided to take off and until we made to Enniskerry, much time elapsed, for the road was in even worse condition than yesterday (totally snowed). Once in town, we headed to a cozy restaurant to enjoy a warm drink (and a guinness) and, most importantly, a very nice time and interesting conversation with a bunch of open-minded, warm-hearted people from all over : )

Bon any a tothom!