Events

A good Rutsch to all!

This year for the first time I was wished einen guten Rutsch on New Year’s Eve. This puzzled me a little until I figured it was another of those German sayings that has no literal meaning.

January 1 is the first day of the Gregorian calendar used by most western countries. Strange that we so momentously celebrate a mode of measuring time which was arbitrarily applied to the turning of the world - but that’s probably a little too philosophical for a Monday. And did you know that until the thirteenth century the German New Year was celebrated on Christmas Day (December 25)? Why have one party when you can have two, I say.

What I did notice about German New Year’s is the (as we say in English) ballyhoo, shenanigans, tomfoolery and general mayhem that goes on in Germany on Silvester. Where I come from glass bottles, public consumption of alcohol and fireworks are prohibited. So I was a little taken aback when I found myself in the middle of a drunken warzone before 12:00 on January 1 2008.

But despite all the craziness, I was interested to see that not too many emergency services were about. Which leaves me to believe that Germans, and Europeans in general, have the whole New Year’s thing sorted out. Maximum fun, minimum trouble/pain. Probably because you have been doing it for a good thousand years, and in New Zealand it’s more like 100. Go figure.