Happy New Year!

Last night to celebrate New Year's Eve we went over to the Montenegros' for supper. Eunice cooked a beautiful giant turkey, and there was stuffing, rice with pinenuts, lentils (a traditional Brazilian New Year's Eve to provide good luck with money over the next year), salad, cheese on polenta rounds, mashed potatoes, and homemade chutney with chipotle peppers. Dessert was a delicious passionfruit mousse as well as an ice cream birthday cake for Eunice, as her birthday is January 1st. The first picture shows Eunice blowing out all her candles.
There was much food and drink as we waited for the new year, and the moment at which we could eat the delicious pot of saurkraut and smoked pork soup brought by Gerd. He mentioned the soup at Christmas and promised to make it for us all at some point. Apparantly it is a tradition in Austria, or at least the region from which he comes, to eat this rich soup as the new year arrives. He swore that it not only helps the stomach better digest all the food and alcohol, but it also has the miraculous power to sober up all those who eat it. I tried to ensure that I was as drunk as possible at midnight so as to test these claims. Though I'm not certain that I was entirely sober afterward, I did feel surprisingly well this morning. Perhaps he's on to something. We were all a bit suspicious as Gerd was the only one who didn't eat the soup, but this had more to do with him being a vegetarian than anything else.
The other picture was taken just as we were leaving. We're still not really used to taking pictures, so we didn't really get any of the food or from around midnight, but this is better than nothing. Missing from the picture are Eunice (who took it), and Bruno and Bruce, who had left earlier. In the picture, from left to right, beginning with the back row, are Alvaro, Gerd, Shelley, Shannon, Jeremi (our sober designated driver, as he is on duty today), and myself. In the front row are Jason, Chris (Erico's friend), and Erico, with Storm the cat and Smores the dog. All in all it was a very nice evening.
And so we went home and tried to get a good night's sleep so that Jeremi could get up and work early this morning. But then we were awakened at around 4:00 by the sound of cats fighting inside our apartment. I shook Jeremi awake and asked him what was going on. In he half sleep he calmly answered that the cat was fighting with one of the neighbour's cats. I pointed out that all the windows and doors were shut, and that when we went to bed there was only one cat inside our apartment. He agreed that we should probably check it out, and then promptly fell back to sleep, despite the yowls and hisses coming from our living room. I tentatively got up to check it out, a bit worried about what I would find. What I found was our cat with all the hair on her back and tail standing up as straight as possible, attacking the sliding glass door with all her might. On the other side of the glass was one of the neighbourhood cats, doing the same from his side of the glass. I scared the other cat away and went back to bed, but it really was quite a terrible ruckus. I hope it's not indicative of the rest of the year...