Jason's Daily Notes

NEW YEARS EVE.
It's also Mel's birthday.
I met Mel and Fernanda and Mari for lunch at My Old Dutch. I was a little late coming there. They did not have the £5 special. We stayed for lunch for a while. Midnight had struck in Australia, Japan, and China. Then we walked to the British Museum area for Mari to exchange cash (but she didn't there). We split; Mel and I walked to Primark then SportsDirect to buy umbrellas.

Returned home around 16:15. Mike said that he, Merlin, and I should leave by 16:45. We had to buy drinks and snacks before getting dinner and then heading to Westminster Bridge to view the fireworks! So we stopped by the Kennington Tesco, then we took another bus to Lambeth North, where we walked to Duke Thai (at the exact time we had dinner there 1 year ago!). It was midnight in India - we all greeted Swag. There was a group of Germans there who thought I also spoke German (they must have vaguely heard Mike and Merlin talking). Hahah.

We got to the bridge around 6:45-7pm. It was already filling up - there were no more spaces available at the railing itself. We chose a spot behind some relatively short Chinese people :P We ate our food (which was difficult for me because my food came in two boxes, and I didn't want to let anything touch the wet and dirty ground). We continued snacking, drinking a little bit from the ginger beer/vodka mix (but not too much - we really wanted to avoid having to pee).



We stood (sometimes sitting on a plastic bag to rest our legs). The crowds filled in. I was concerned with my phone's battery so I turned it off. The rain had stopped and the clouds were starting to part. We had only had 1 beer by 11pm. But at 11pm it was the new year in Netherlands - time to pop one of the bottles of champagne! Soon it was midnight! Then came another bottle of champagne and the fireworks! The display was amazing - you can easily find it on YouTube. Our view was much better than last years.

The fireworks lasted like 12 minutes, then we started clearing out. All of a sudden, the alcohol hit us and we had to pee, and we started becoming really tipsy. We ended up walking a long way, south along the river, headed towards Clapham. We peed on so many things and into the river. I broke my umbrella. Merlin and I threw dozens of empty bottles and cans into the river (cleaning the streets)! We ended up all the way in Battersea. My phone was dead, and Kristi wasn't responding about when they would head to her house. How the hell were we going to get home? Mike insisted on taking us further away from home and catching a bus that was going the wrong way. I disagreed, and I let them get on the bus. It was starting to rain. I caught the first bus, which was going to Victoria. But I thought, fuck it I just wanna go home, so I hopped out and hailed the first taxi, which took me straight home for only like £12.

I made sure to wake up at 8am to celebrate California new years.

Hilarious night! But not too crazy, by my standards of new years parties! :)