Well, somehow Amsterdam is MY PLACE this year ^^
I was there in February with these wonderful crazy guys to celebrate Mo’s birthday:

And in April – also just for one night – to celebrate the bachelorette party of my lovely friend Jenny:

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And so I was supposed to celebrate New Year’s Eve there as well! :)

It was a multicultural mixture of people – just the way I love it! :D
We stayed at my swedish friend Marcus place and prepared a great dinner at his wonderful place – an apartment just beside the IJ-Haven. The view: just amazing!

Maybe I should tell you first how come that I know a swedish guy who lives in Amsterdam ;) Well, when I lived in Düsseldorf, in 2010, there was one fateful evening when I got to know 2 guys – Filipe und Fredrik: a Portuguese guy (or to be exact: 2/3 Portuguese and 1/3 Chinese ^^) and a Swedish guy – who doesn’t look like a Swede at all: dark hair! ;) … And we had a great time – celebrating a lot of crazy Parties. But then Fredrik left – he moved to London. And so Filipe was in need of another swedish guy to join him :D And this was when Marcus entered the stage. ;) … And then there was also Ira – my half-Indonesian half-German friend who joined us. We had a great time together! But then we all broke new ground: Filipe moved to London, Marcus to Amsterdam and I moved to Cologne.

So this New Year’s Eve was like a reunion – even if Filipe couldn’t join us.

… so we had dinner – the «Swedish Mafia» (aka the «three M’s» – Marcus, Markus und Matthias) ^^ my friend Ira, her brother Indra and me. And after that we went to a private Party in the center of Amsterdam. Some friends of Marcus had rent a little Café just beside the Amstel river. Good music, cozy place, lovely people! We laughed and danced and talked a lot. And had a looot of drinks ^^

The Swedish Mafia:

And some more impressions of the Party:

At the next morning we had a great breakfast at a very lovely Café next to the haven:

On the way back we found this great piece of streetart work! :D

Résumé: Great trip, one of the best NYE, met a lot of interesting people, had some very interesting conversations – especially with a certain german guy ;)
Looking forward to another adventurous year! :)