One of my favorite things to do in life is to have some kind of cultural experience either while traveling abroad or in my own country. This year, I celebrated NYE this year in Tel Aviv with my best friend, his Kazakistani friend and his friend, a Russian living in Finland. It was a very international night. NYE is not something that is traditionally a celebration in Israel (they have their own new year celebration in the fall), instead I had a mix of a Russian and American night.
The first thing I learned was that Russians can drink a lot, even though we had three bottles of sparkling wine, Finnish booze and a bottle of whiskey, we obviously had to go and buy more alcohol and this had to include a bottle of vodka. I was told that night I had drank vodka incorrectly my whole life, usually mixing it with something else. According to the Russians, vodka should always be drunk cold and by itself (or in a Russian bloody mary, which is a shot not a brunch drink). There is also a very special way to drink the vodka so that you don't actually taste it. You should drink it as a shot and try not to breathe as you take it down. Your first breath should be smelling something like bread or in our instance french fries from the schwarma stand. Drinking in this manner insures that you will not really taste the vodka at all. It really works, though I am not sure that drinking without tasting anything can lead to good things...
The other piece of information I learned this night is be careful drinking with Russians! Leaving a bottle of vodka with a little bit of vodka left is not done, so we had to finish the whole bottle before going out.... WOW. Since we went to a bar (ended up being 75% American) to ring in the new year, we had to bring a long one of the bottles of sparkling wine, because it is a must drink at midnight for Russians.
After midnight we proceeded to stay at the bar for a while chatting about nothing to mostly Americans, a few Hungarians and a Brit. Then we went home and I went to bed, while the boys all stayed up until 5 am drinking more. I can say that I was the only one who didn't have a hangover the next morning!
NYE ended up being a really fun night, I survived my first Russian drinking experience and for the first time in my life was not freezing to death! It was welcome change after a snowy two weeks in Germany and temperatures hovering right around freezing. I don't want to go home to winter in Colorado for three more months.... At least I know how to drink vodka now and stay warm like the Russians!
Happy New Year!
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