📕 Part 1: New Year

How do you celebrate New Year?

Well, there isn't exactly a set itinerary, but it almost always involves friends, alcohol, loud music and some sort of adventure. This year, the specifics were: my friend's apartment, white wine, Shania Twain, and setting off fireworks in the park outside of their house. I've never done that before. It was quite good fun.

How do people in your country celebrate New Year?

Well, sort of the way I did it with their friends and family. We used to have large gatherings in public and parks. For example, in Edinburgh, they have a big gathering to watch the fireworks displays. And they fire a cannon from the castle. And that's that's quite cool. But I suppose all of that's kind of off the cards or it was off the cards this year for most people because of the crisis.

What do people do on New Year's Day?

Well, in the words they recover, I don't think it matters who you are or how you celebrate. Most people are exhausted from a night of partying, and so they spend the day in recovery mode by sleeping in or tidying up very slowly and just thinking about their plans for the year. Many people visited their relatives or neighbors and wished them a happy New Year. That was in previous years. I don't think they'll be doing that this year. I think that's off the menu.

Why do you think people think New Year is a new beginning?

Well, it seems like there's a logical connection between the start of a new year and a fresh start for yourself. If you have a diary and you see the pages that haven't been written on yet, that can be a tempting thought. And there's the meme of New Year, New Me. I don't think that's a bad thing, though. It's just good to have some upswell of motivation to help you reach your goals. You just have to maintain. That's the biggest problem.

Is there a particularly memorable New Year?

Well, 2020 and 2021, I suppose. The former was the last time I saw my friends and family in Scotland, and the latter was just perfect evening and day. I didn't have a hangover and there was sunshine, I chilled at home, well, in the day. And then I tidied up and it was great. -

So New Year, what do we do with New Year, we celebrate New Year.

Mm hmm.

We have New Year traditions.

We have a party on New Year.

Oh, on New Year, really?

Or at New Year.

At New Year. OK.

Well, whatever. Not in.

Mm hmm. We have New Year's Eve. So New Year's Eve that's 31st of December or the 30th of December.

31st of December.

New Year's Eve. And you do stuff on New Year's Day.

No, you don't do anything on New Year's Day.

Some people do, you know, like they buy presents or they starting freaking out because they forgot to buy some mayo.

Isn't that just all Russians in general.

Russians yes, because mayonnaise or mayo is the secret Russian ingredient.

It's mandatory for all food, salads, mayonnaise, pizza, mayonnaise, ice cream, mayonnaise. Listen, you and I both know that Russians have mayonnaise on everything.

Yeah, well, Americans put ketchup on the pizza.

Oh yes, America that great inspiration for how the world should work.

Oh, right. So when we talk about New year, you do need some topical vocabulary and New Year's vocabulary. Fireworks.

Fireworks, everybody has fireworks. For a colocation firework displays.

Yeah, you watch fireworks displays or you can say shoot fireworks. I shoot fireworks on New Year's Day or Rory said set off fireworks.

And you can fire a cannon.

Oh, my God. Yes. Give it to me. Oh, we do have a massive cannon.

And you do it on victory day. You fire Cannon on the hill overlooking Park Pobedy? You look like you didn't know that, but everybody knows that, especially the people in the surrounding apartments. So you fire a cannon then. And in Scotland on New Year, they fire a cannon from Edinburgh Castle.

Wow, cool. Yeah. So if you have some ceremonies or traditions like this, like do check them out and know some special vocabulary. So we usually set off fireworks. Or people have sparklers.

Sparklers are usually for bonfire night, aren't they?

No, actually in Russia it's quite popular to have different sparklers, meaning sparklers, huge sparklers like you were holding it. And it just like give sparkles for 10 minutes.

Really? Sounds really dangerous.

Yeah, I did that at home.

When you were 10.

No, no. This year, yeah. We bought sparklers.

I guess sparklers are safer than fireworks.

Hmm, OK. So Sparklers, if you have no idea what we're talking about, could you Google it? A sparkler s p a r k l e r, a sparkler, ask Maria to spell everything.

Don't ask me to spell Librivox.

Yeah. We also have Christmas crackers, some people have. And confetti.

But that's for Christmas.

For Christmas?

Yes, that's why they are called "Christmas" crackers.

Oh my God. "New Year" crackers. How about that?

Well, it's probably important to point out that Maria is speaking from a Russian perspective. And for you guys, Christmas is around this period, whereas for Western people it's past.

No, for Russian people, Christmas is on the 7th of January.

Yes. That's why I said it's around this period of new year.

Ok, anyway, everybody can have confetti. This explosion of color, rain of colorful paper that you can clean.

I was going to say it's a real annoying thing to clean up, though. You could have party poppers.

What do you do during New year? Sleep in. What do you do when you sleep in?

You stay in bed for a long time, which is what I did this morning or what I tried to do.

After the party, you tidy up.

Well, all your friends tidy up.

All the confetti.

All the confetti, broken wine glasses, blood.

You can say throw a party like I have a party, I'm the organizer of a party. I throw a party. I dress up for the party. Did you dress up for this new year?

I didn't wear clothes that were three years old. I call that dressing up.

I thought you'd say, oh, I didn't wear any clothes at all, darling.

That was later in the party.

So after this party, we usually have a hangover.

Yes. That's when you make silly life choices with lots of alcohol. But I don't do this and I haven't done it for two new years in a row. So good for me.

Wow. You are an example for us all, Rory.

No, I just only drank two bottles of wine.

I'm just a bottles of wine, you know, just like nothing like a glass of water.

I lived in Russia.

So our Scottish Rory has been Russianized. And about hangover, Rory. This expression like nurse a hangover.

Yeah.

Everybody nurses a hangover on the 1st of January.

Well, not everybody, but they're kind of tired. So they go into recovery mode.

Yes, so if you nurse a hangover, you just have this hangover.

It's important to point out, though, like this word "mode" followed after the adjective is quite important. So you can have recovery mode, which is like this is the mode just means the main disposition of your body or your attitude. So recovery mode is like when you focus all your efforts on recovery. Damage control mode is what Vanya does when he takes out all of the swearing from the podcast to keep our reputations intact.

Yep. And for some people, a recovery means another glass of bubbly.

Those people are called alcoholics.

And bubbly, we call champagne bubbly. So a glass of bubbly, a bottle of bubbly so we can drink two bottles of bubbly. And he's fine, you know, just like water to him. Rory, you said that there isn't any itinerary like a set itinerary.

An itinerary, Maria, is a list of things that you have to do in the order that you have to do them in. So some people are very organized New Year's parties where it's like arrive at seven o'clock, champagne at eight o'clock, nine o'clock play some games. This is, as you can imagine, my idea of hell. I just want to sit around and talk to people about nothing.

Yeah. Usually we use itinerary about traveling. When you go on a tour, there's a certain itinerary of places and dates and time that you're going to visit those places.

If you have an itinerary for your New Year party and you invite me, don't expect it to go according to plan. That's...Oh. It's important to point out, though, a set itinerary is like fixed times. Yeah. When you when things must be done. So you can have a set itinerary, a set plan, it's not really changeable. It has fixed times in it.

People used to have large gatherings during New Year's celebrations, but now that's off the cards.

It is. If something is off, the cards are off the menu, it just means it cannot be done.

Yeah, and first of all, he said that it's off the cards and then he rephrased himself and used. It's off the menu now. Yeah. As if it's a restaurant. My life is a restaurant. It's off the menu.

My life is a restaurant. There's lots of different flavors.

Oh, wow.

There's lots of different things to choose from. I talked about the meme of New Year - New me.

New Year - New you.

We should really talk about memes because it's something that people often encounter, but they don't actually pronounce it properly. Some people say me me or mi.

Really? Well, but it's like a "gif", gif or gif?

Well, not always. A meme is actually just an idea that replicates itself multiple times over a wide area. Erm, so but an Internet culture, a meme is like a gif or or a still image with a catchy expression that goes viral, which is another expression connected to memes, which means lots of people share it. So the meme of or the idea of New Year - New Me is a popular idea. It's a ridiculous one, but it is popular.

Yeah, you guys, so if you have certain traditions which have been passed down, you know.

Through the generations.

Yeah. Traditions which passed down or which have been passed down.

Traditions which are passed down, passive voice.

If you have some traditions which are passed down from your grandmother or from your great grandmother to you during New Year. So make sure that you Google them and you do know some specific vocabulary. We hope that you've turned over a new leaf already.

And what?

No, it's a like a like a New Year - New me.

New leaf?

We should turn over a new leaf. This expression, you know.

Where did that come from?

You turn... From your language!!!

I didn't say it.

No, you didn't. But people say that. Yeah, like New Year you should turn over a new leaf. No? Kind of...a new page!

People use to say it, generally speaking, to mean change your behavior.

But usually during New Year. No? Because of this New Year's resolutions. Oh, by the way, resolutions, right.

Usually you talk about it when someone's radically changed their behavior. Do people radically change their behavior at New Year.

Well, we are hoping on this podcast that's a, well, you did turn over a new leaf.

That's why we're talking about a month after the fact. Perfect timing.

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