Seeing the wood AND the trees

I have been considering closing this account for a while. Last night I dreamt I had to console Emmanuel Macron because he didn’t want to shake hands with Trump at the Notre Dame ceremony and I have decided it was a sign 🤣. Off to cleaner air.

@CeliaBedelia It was much the same in Cologne the one and only time I spent NYE in the city centre. I grew up in the UK with public information videos like this one around our “fireworks day” (different story 😉) so you can imagine my horror 🤣: m.youtube.com/watch?v=WuQE0u…

Last year, we casually told our American friends, who have lived in Berlin for years, “We’re going to the celebration at the gate on New Year’s Eve!” They both stared at us, horrified. One of them said, “Celia, it’s truly post-apocalyptic. It’s like the Fourth of July, but a hundred times worse. You have no idea.” I looked at her, somewhat incredulously. “We’ve survived New York City on the Fourth of July. That was chaos. How bad can it be?” Oh, I was *so* wrong. To play it safe, we left the kids with my mom, who was visiting from South Carolina. My husband and I went alone. We arrived six hours early because I was determined to be as close as possible to the stage for Riverdance (and no, I’m not joking about this 🤣). Fireworks started soon after the performances ended… but not over the gate, as you’d expect. No, they were behind us. We had to turn around to even see them. As we left, I thought, “That wasn’t so bad!”—until we realized the roads were blocked and the police were essentially herding the crowd to another part of the city. “No big deal,” I said, “We’ll just walk to the nearest S-Bahn or U-Bahn station.” And that’s when the *real* chaos started. We walked, and suddenly it felt like we’d entered a very different reality. Fireworks went off in every direction. People were running through the streets, carrying fireworks in their hands and setting them off in the streets. Smoke filled the air, and the sound of popping fireworks was deafening (and constant). Every S-Bahn and U-Bahn station we passed was closed. So we just kept walking. And walking. We finally made it to Alexanderplatz, only to discover that many of the trains were disrupted or had intermittent service. Eventually, we made it to an U-Bahn station that would take us home. By then, we were starving. We found a döner stand that was still open and packed with people. I asked the guy behind the counter, “So, have you worked on New Year’s Eve before?” He smiled and said, “Of course. That’s why I stay open this late. Berlin stays awake all night to celebrate, and people are going to want lots of döner.” Wise man. *And* maybe the best fries I’ve had in Berlin. Or, you know, maybe I was just starving. We finally made it home well after 2 AM. My kids and mom were still awake. My mom, wide-eyed, asked, “WHAT is happening out there?!” And my kids were still pressed to the windows, hoping for more fireworks—two hours after midnight. Our legs were aching from hours off standing and walking, and I have a video of my mom hysterically laughing (which she would never let me share on social media) as we told her about our night and asked, “How many ibuprofen do you think we’ll need tomorrow?” In the end, we learned that New Year’s Eve in Berlin isn’t just a celebration—it’s a wild, exhausting adventure, where chaos, excitement, and a few too many fireworks make for a night you’ll never forget.

@Claire_Cox16 @germany_iam Thank you!

@williamswendl @germany_iam If only - sounds like my kind of networking with added Glühwein! Enjoy!

Some of us who’ve met through Twitter/X are meeting up to do the Glühweinwanderung in Cologne on 5 December. We’ll be starting from Severinstorburg at 6pm. If anyone else would like to join us, we’d love to have you! @germany_iam koeln.de/weihnachten/ll…

See you there? @germany_iam

IMAGINE if the biggest day in the retail year was reinvented with a little more colour & cheer? Today is ❤️🧡💛#colourfriday💚💙💜 a campaign founded by @hollytucker as an antidote to the Black Friday discount craziness! Buy one gift from a small business helloruth.co.uk

@anzhela_berlin The restaurant on the roof of Galeries Lafayette.

With more and more Christmas markets here in Germany offering the German version of curling, I am reminded that I spent years wondering what on earth it had to do with ovaries 🤣.

My 53 😉:

@hoskas The problem is that *we* don’t deserve it.

Modern technology… It can “print” a new crown for me (think teeth, not head - recent trip to dentist) or it can do this 😉:

Good morning everyone! My cappuccino *is* smiling at me, isn’t it?

Here's our last parody song about the #USElection2024. It's called "Bohemian Trumpsody" (based on the inimitable @QueenWillRock but with only six voices & no overdubs) & we've self-trolled in it as 'libtards' already, just to save folks time who might be offended 🎶🗳️🤞 👉youtu.be/YY_8WzcHqMQ

@tehnyit @jac_siuhaj Tehn, don’t jeopardise our friendship! 😉

@jac_siuhaj A soft approach is to spread it with honey. Work wonders with Vegemite.

Good morning friends. Welcome Monday or day 3 of our holidays. I thought I'll give marmite another chance, maybe I'll be able to handle it but nope 🤣

my god. just…my god.

The perks of living in Germany 🤣. (Someone's trying to get rid of some cake).

@JohnLovesJulie You’ve disappeared from my feed! But, yes, we watched this about 2 years after everyone else (apart from you 😉) and really enjoyed it. The last series wasn’t as good as the first ones though. Hard to keep that level of momentum up.

Whenever I see a bus stop in Belgium, I feel an urge to start singing “Don’t cry for me, Argentina” 😉:

When the conference session in Bruges starts *before* breakfast in the hotel, what else is a girl supposed to do?

I ❤️ Belgian trains: