2002-01-01 - 10:00 a.m. upside down Happy New Year! Started off my celebrating with a marvelous vegetarian dinner at Neal's Yard Salad Bar in Covent Garden. My hostess for my stay here in London had a tasty vegetarian pizza which had a thin crust and a bit of a BBQ taste to it. I had the "cheese special" (as compared to the vegan special) hot meal, which was a mound of cheddar smothered rice, beans, peas, and vegetables. The perfect meal to take off the New Year's Eve chill. Picked up vegan chocolate muffins from here for a New Year's Day breakfast as well. (NOTE: although my eating habits are close to omnivorous, one of my hosts here is vegan, while the other is vegetarian, making a find such as this restaurant marvelous.) After this feast, we came home to ready for what I've been told is the quintessential British New Year's Eve experience: celebrating at the pub. Like the states, everyone's goal is to get quite drunk. Unlike the states (for the most part), people start drinking en route (on the tube for instance), and are quite sauced once they arrive at their final destination. Things were in full swing at the pub in Finsbury Park when we arrived. Over the course of the evening there were several cover bands playing all the hits of America from the eighties and nineties (yes, we even were treated to U2 covers, and either a live or recorded version of Bon Jovi's "living on a prayer". scary stuff.) Then came the standard countdown at midnight, after which I got to see what makes New Year's Eve different in the UK from the states... 1. Everyone kisses everyone else within reach. One of my hosts had kindly warned me about this in advance so it didn't seem weird. I can't recall ever kissing so many people in such a short time span. Amazingly, the deep dark chanel lipstick i'd put on in the morning made it through all this still looking fairly good...it also looked quite lovely as lip prints on everyone's cheeks. ;-) 2. Everyone sings "Auld Land Syne". I thought that only happened in movies, but I was wrong. Probably similar to the delusions I had about no one playing charades...I have to admit to *not* singing along. 3. This is the one time in the year a stranger will talk to you on the tube, at the pub, etc. Having only been here for a week, I have to take this at face value...but, in support of this statement, my hostess here said to me, as we traveled home from the Tate Modern museum earlier this week, "If I have a heart attack or some other medical emergency while I'm on the tube, I hope an American is sitting next to me -- A Londoner would step over my twitching, dying body without even noticing." Quite a lovely evening indeed. Now, I'm off to brew another cup of tea and eat one of those scrumptious chocolate muffins. Cheers. any comments? (0 so far) previous - next recently on almostgoldsf... in defense of an email box I came to do battle with SPAM - 2008-05-17 hello 2006 - 2005-12-31 Happy Thanksgiving - 2005-11-14 bon voyage - 2005-11-05 October already? - 2005-10-09