‘Oh, so you will celebrate ‘New Year in Egypt’, was what many of my friends are saying. ‘What will you do?’. I had no idea but the idea of not knowing (and no need of taking care about any planning) how and even with whom I’m going to celebrate the New Year. The idea of celebrate it with 20 people from more than 15 countries actually gave me a positive perspective on 2013.
The last day of the year started on the roof top of our hotel in Cairo, overlooking the dusty 
Old Town and the Nile, brought us through the neighbourhood on researching for objects (or situations) that symbolise citizenship or democratic participation for us, before we went on our adventurous bus ride to Alexandria, Egypt’s pearl of the Mediterranean Sea. For the around 200 km it took us more than 4 hours, half of the time in the traffic of Cairo and Alexandria; in between: desert! And speed bump after speed bump. But coming back to the New Year’s Eve. The organisers decided to combine the usual ‘intercultural evening’ with our New Year’s celebration, so we were asked to bring typical food and drinks with us. But we were confronted with intercultural obstacles, since the Egyptian policy concerning the consumption of alcohol in public places (like restaurants, hotels) is different to what we were used to. Long story short: we cheated. Pálinka became ‘Hungarian water’, anise schnapps from Jordan also found a new home in a plastic bottle; the idea of celebrating NYE without alcohol seemed too strange for all of us. But it should become even stranger, I would rather use the word surreal to summarise the course of that night. Walking to the restaurant along the Corniche of Alexandria, we were told to stay away from the houses (walk on the sea side), since the people of Alexandria have the tradition to throw things out of their windows on New Year. And by things, they mean glass, stones, chairs or other furnitures. We saw some remains on our way back later…
In the focus: the ‘Hungarian water’
Our restaurant was colourfully decorated, a reminiscence to an American diner. But we had to fill it with life. And we did, celebrating it for all … It was full of emotions, a mix of different European New Year’s Eve traditions, party heads and confetti, food from all over Europe, Egyptian pizza (both the best and the worst pizza I ever had in Egypt), a German future telling session, and so on… I can’t go more into details. Plus I think that what happens at ‘Marcous’ should stay there. I can say that it was like no New Years Eve party; I couldn’t have chosen a better place to be. Just like that.
With room for improvement: text by Tina, pics by Ljuba
It was the best new year ever I had it in Alexandria cheers every one