Company Christmas Party

I work for a startup in Berlin. Apparently it's a pretty normal thing to do in this city -- Berlin has one of the highest concentrations of startups in all of Europe. True to startup form, they do things a little bit differently due to the lack of HR.

We had our Christmas party this past weekend, and wow.. What a party.

First off we began with a presentation (accompanied by beer for the guys and  by the CEO about the past year, the company in general, and the goals for the next year. He used 3 examples to try to make our product more relatable to customers, one of which was an employee who "is with a different girl every night." Although the employee in question was not there, the CEO used this example several times, making for a funny -- but very awkward -- situation because this man slut's ex gf is also an employee and was in attendance.  It was not very cool.

After the meeting we headed out to The Grand, a restaurant/bar/club that is swanky in that chic divey way that some places manage to achieve.  It looks kind of like a rich old person's house, and is huge. There is a fine line between actual dive and dive-chic, and a huge part of that is the quality of service. The wait staff were top notch and the quality of the food was amazing.

We had our own room and arrived in small groups. I ended up near the CEO, the other US girl, and the 3rd in command, S. It was nice to talk to US girl for "real" because normally at the office she is very reserved and work-focused.  S was great, however. We chatted away contentedly for the whole dinner.

Dinner was amazing, a 3 course German extravaganza. You had the option of choosing meat, fish or vegetarian when RSVPing for the invite. Most chose meat, I asked for fish, and the "twins" (two girls who are besties in the office) got vegetarian.

First course: charcuterie & fois gras / salad
Second course: chicken leg / salmon / risotto accompanied by dumplings and various kinds of German cabbage
Third course: a marzipan tart and ice cream

Wine was free flowing during the entire meal. I have no idea how many bottles we drank but it was a LOT.  While we were waiting between courses people were moving around and switching seats. A bit of excitement (among the girls, at least) went around because a rumor was floating around that German actor Til Schweiger was in the house.

My salad

The meat dish's appetizer..More meat

Yummy salmon & chicken on the other plate

dessert

After dinner we moved downstairs to the bar and partied our hearts out. It was still a bit early for Berlin to be out and about in full force. We were one of the first groups in the bar and lo and behold Til Schweiger was taking advantage of the quiet time! I got a picture with him. He was shorter and much more average looking compared to the way I imagined him to be, but I've heard that's the way with actors in general...I wouldn't know, I haven't seen too many.

Til Schweiger, the guy I didn't recognize till someone told me he was in Inglorious Bastards, which I haven't seen.

Once the DJ started everyone was dancing around and taking pictures. We were taking over the dance floor!  For some reason we were all ordering Moscow Mules. No idea why.  They are delicious, by the way

After what seemed like only 5 minutes of dancing, but was probably about 5 hours, we tried to head off to another locale. The only problem was, there were so many of us and we were so drunk.. We just kind of peeled off and went in separate groups despite our best efforts. I ended up at a club called Cookies gate crashing the Christmas party of another startup that the CEO and COO knew about. I was so drunk at this point I have no idea how we got inside.. The CEO was talking forever to the ticket lady and finally she let us inside. It's kind of a blur, I remember getting drinks from the C-guys and then they went off to talk to someone, leaving us girls (S, B, and I) to fend for ourselves. S left shortly thereafter but B and I stuck it out for a while. I spotted a pole at one corner of the dance floor and tried to show off my pole dancing skills. I would prefer to not see how that turned out.

I heard a couple people faceplanted a few times. I somehow managed to stay upright, but discovered upon waking that about a good hunk of one of my fingernails had ripped off. Talk about painful. At first it was bleeding but now it's getting better and the skin is toughening up a lot. On the one hand this is good because I actually have use of all ten fingers now and don't have to wince in pain every time I touch something. On the other (superficial) hand I am doubting the nail will ever really grow back over the fresh skin. My french manicures, should I ever choose to get them, will be forever ruined. Oh well.

It may not look that bad now.. But try ripping off part of your fingernail and see how you feel

Live for the nights you won't remember with the friends you'll never forget, right??