The Road Less Traveled

Around 6:45 p.m., Peter grabbed the Rotkapchen champagne and the giant bag of fireworks and put them in the back of the Mercedes.  20 minutes later, we were in the city center of Heidelberg looking for a parking space.  The parking angels I’d prayed to seemed to have shined upon us, as we found a free space not too far from Bismarckplatz.  The weather angels were not quite as kind—it was raining hard enough that even Peter decided to use an umbrella. 

I didn’t know how far the restaurant was, but I figured there would be time to come back to the car for the fireworks and champagne before midnight, and suggested we leave stuff in the car.

As we headed towards the pedestrian street (Hauptstrasse), Peter asked me if I knew who Bismarck was. I said of course—he was the person responsible for unifying Germany [in the 1800s].  He replied that in Germany, Bismark is more famous for starting the social security system, a move which was designed to curry workers away from Marxist or socialist ideologies.

We hurried down the long Hauptstrasse through the rain and about half an hour later we arrived at Alte Gundtei, a Turkish restaurant famous for its lamb grill. (No one knows what “Gundtei” means.) On the way to the table we saw a group of Americans but I didn’t say hello to them; ditto for the Russian speakers at the table next to us. 

Peter’s friends were already waiting for us at the table:  Christiane, her husband Thorsten, and their 11-year old son Yannick; and Christiane’s brother Stefan and his friend Wolfgang. We shared a platter of appetizers and two bottles of wine. The stuffed grape leaves and hummus were fantastic.  I had Patlican Kebap, lamb grill with eggplant (in a tomato sauce).  Peter isn’t a fan of lamb, so he had beef kebap with mushrooms. It looked really good. 

Our waiter was in surprisingly good spirits.  When everyone but Thorsten had gotten their meal, the waiter said to Thorsten, “Oh, you wanted it for this year?”  Later he asked us if everything was all right.  We said yes, and he said, “Truly?” Then he told a story about a man who ordered a steak. The waiter asked if it was good and the man replied, “I’ve had better steaks.” The waiter responded, “Yes, but not in this restaurant.”

The restaurant closed at 10, just around the time Peter’s friend Christoph joined us.  We lingered drinking our Turkish coffee (in Germany called “Turkish mocha”), milk coffee, or Turkish tea in traditional glasses until the waiters began closing the blinds.

By that point (i.e. after Peter’s friends teased him for parking so far away and leaving the fireworks in the car), it was clear that we were heading not back to the car but onwards.  We first went to the Alte Bruecke (Old Bridge), which has a lovely view of the castle lit up in orange. Once again, my camera was crap at night and I couldn’t get a decent shot. More importantly, Christiane became nervous around all the people setting off fireworks on the bridge so close to us. It was decided that we should instead head up to the castle.

The Burgweg (castle path) was a 10 minute hike up stairs; I probably took longer to pause and catch my breath.  The castle itself was closed off for a private party, but there was an outlook near the castle where we could see the Alte Bruecke. Or rather, we could have seen the bridge if there weren’t already a ton of people standing at the edge of the outlook.

We parked ourselves around a bench a few feet away, and Thorsten opened the first bottle of champagne even though it was 50 minutes until midnight.  I’m not sure if that was because his backpack was getting heavy, we needed something to do until midnight, or if he needed an empty bottle from which to shoot off his fireworks. After a couple of sips, I couldn’t be bothered to ask.

Stefan and Wolfgang disappeared momentarily; when they returned they said they had found a path below the outlook where we could have an unobstructed view of the bridge and safely set off fireworks.  We packed up and headed down.  We started setting off fireworks slightly before midnight like most people were doing. Stefan used his radio-controlled watch to help us countdown to true midnight, at which time we took a more meaningful sip of our champagne and clinked glasses.

For at least another half an hour, we along with everyone in the region set off our own fireworks. I was a bit surprised there was no single, publicly-run fireworks in Heidelberg, the kind one would get in an American city on fourth of July.  Yet I also can’t deny or adequately describe the energetic beauty of thousands of personal fireworks set off in rapid succession over the orange lights of the Alte Bruecke and the Neckar river.  Even the rain that fell on and off couldn’t dampen the joy of that.  Peter said 1.3 Billion Euros were spent on fireworks in Germany alone for New Year’s.  In that moment, it seemed like money well spent.

Around 12:30, we started walking down the mountain.  We didn’t take the path the way we came, and there were good reasons why our path was the road less travelled. Part of the road had collapsed, and when we got to the bottom of the hill we found the big wooden gate was locked shut. Fortunately it was only wood and we could pull the door open just wide enough to squeeze through.

In the corner near the gate, Thorsten noticed a man was passed out. At first I thought it might be a homeless man, but he turned out to be a young American. Peter and I separately guessed that he was under 21 and enjoying his first chance to drink legally in Germany. He could barely stand up, but Thorsten managed to place him near people and we eventually saw him on his cell phone calling friends.

We walked on down the Hauptstrasse (main street).  It wasn’t crowded, but there were definitely people out in various stages of dress and drunkenness. The streets were littered with trash and broken glass. Some clubs had people lining up to get in. One of the most humorous names for such a place translates roughly into English as “Assisted Drinking Facility”. 

We made a big loop on side streets back to the Hauptstrasse and finally sat down in a quiet restaurant for a nightcap. I had gluehwein (mulled wine), and the others had beer or soda.  Yannick sat and drank his soda and built a house—not out of cards, but out of coasters.  Around 2:30, we finally headed back to the car and drove home.  It was the best New Year’s I’d ever had in Germany. Prost Neu Jahr!   

We spent the day napping and watching TV to save our energy for the night’s festivities. We managed to see “Dinner for One” in color for the first time. For those who do not know, “Dinner for One” is a one-act play that was recorded, in English, for German television in 1963. The story is of a 90-year old woman who has her four closest friends over for a multicourse dinner served by her butler, James. The problem is that her friends have been dead for 25 years. James must play the part of each of the friends, and drink a toast from each of them for each of the three courses that are served. The drunker he gets, the funnier the physical comedy and lines get. The classic line is when he asks, “same procedure as last year, Miss Sophie?” “The same procedure as every year, James.” Ironically, nobody in England knows this play. But it’s as traditional in Germany as the ball dropping in Times Square in New York.

Anyway, we went to dinner around 7:30 p.m. at the Hotel Alt Berlin, a newly restored hotel near Potsdamer Platz. It was a small restaurant decorated with old photos and appliances (a plus for Peter who collects them). The servers were dressed in flapper dresses or tweed pants, suspenders, and caps in the style of the 1920s. The dinner was a buffet of fine deli meats, cheeses, canapés, soup, mayonnaise-based salads, two main entrees with sides, and three desserts. It also came with a complimentary rum punsch as well an aperitif. It was overpriced at 48 Euros each, but it was probably the best deal we could get for a dinner at a nice restaurant in Berlin on New Year’s Eve. And anyway, it was quiet and clean and we could relax and stay as long as we wanted there.

Around 10:30, we left the restaurant and walked up Potsdamer Strasse, past the modern glass towers that were the new homes to Deutsche Bahn (German Rail) and Sony and other fine businesses, towards the Brandenburg Gate to see the fireworks at midnight. Reportedly there were 1,000,000 between the gate and the Victory Column (Siegessaeule) for the concert and fireworks. Frankly, we never got close enough to count. We simply walked up Ebertstrasse until we ran into a crowd. Occasionally we could catch a glimpse of the Brandenburg Gate, but as it got closer to midnight, the crowd got thicker until we could barely breathe let alone see anything. Peter was shocked that people were setting off their own fireworks near the crowd up to an hour before midnight.

The official display was not as impressive as I thought it would be, but what there was we were in a great position to see through the barren winter tree in front of us. And maybe just being there was impressive enough. We enjoyed some champagne that Peter had brought in his backpack. The crowd dispersed remarkably quickly, the walk back to the U-Bahn was relatively easy, and the U-Bahn was not as crowded as I’d expected based on experiences in similar crowds in D.C. after fireworks and Presidential inaugurals.