So, the start of a New Year in Berlin. I was working on Silvester (New Year's Eve), which meant I earned my rent just in time to pay it! But I still had a good night.

I've been rather slack at blogging this month, so I'll now take you on a whirlwind trip through the highlights of my month. It's not been the most eventful of months, as it was the month when my financial situation became dire, and my workshifts became ludicrously sparse. And the temperature dipped to -19 (i.e. 'stay in bed' temperature).

But some fun was had.

I went to my first Berlin houseparty, for a workmate's birthday, and now get referred to as Lady Gaga Spears for reasons I can't quite recall, but apparently involving some kind of "Bad Romance" performance.

I also dragged Costas and Felix to a Jewish Gay Eurovision Party. It was a strange but fun night, despite the lack of "talent" on show. Dancing to many Hebrew Eurovision classics such as Ole Ole and Kann was all good fun, and these songs were interspersed with the odd Eurovision classic, Jewish traditional music, and more contemporary stuff like the Black Eyed Peas. But the highlight was when there was a technical error halfway through the first verse of Backstreet's Back. I felt sorry for everyone who had been enjoying the song (all 2 of us), so kindly sang the rest up to the chorus loud enough for the entire dancefloor to hear. I may have got a round of applause for it, but I suspect it may also have had something to do with my failure to pull that night. When we worked in, a woman from German radio tried to interview us. When she asked what we were doing there, I explained it was a Eurovision night. She said "Yes, but it's also a gay Jewish night". I replied "yes, but I'm not gay or Jewish, I just love Eurovision." Costas asked me what I just said, so I told him "I'm not gay or Jewish", then realised what I'd just said. It might be a year later, but I clearly still forget sometimes! Other - more cloudy - memories include singing Eres Tu with a Peruvian lady, and verbally abusing an American. "Where are you from?" "Detroit." "Oh, Chicago.".

I also met with Anja and Thomas, and had a lovely home-cooked meal. I met Anja's daughter, Paula, who bestowed on me a necklace with the peace symbol on it. I saw it as an important step in diplomatic relations between our respective nations. I then drank a lot of wine, and so my night out with Thomas had to be cancelled, as I staggered home with the leftover soup in a Tupperware box and a couple of apples.

January also saw my first solo mission to the hairdressers. Though I flicked through the only magazines I had - the Berlin gay guides - I couldn't find a suitable picture to take with me to show how I wanted my hair, so I had to resort to using my German. With clever phrases like "Ich möchte ein Haircut", thankfully learning the German shaver measurement system (drei, sechs, neun, zwölf) and the words for sides (die Seiten), top (oben) and scissors (Scheren) we came to an understanding. Though she was very reluctant to cut off my hair I proposed "sechs", but she said it was "too short" and oops this is turning into a bad porno script. Anyway she shaved it, and I said "a bit shorter", so she used "zwölf", and I said " a bit shorter so" so she used "neun". And I think that's where we stopped. But it turned out rather ok, it's not a mullet at least! Though it is shorter than I'm used to, and means my head is cold, and also makes me look rather gay Berlinerisch and big-eared, it wasn't as dreadful an experience as I'd anticipated!

And my quiet month was rounded off with a not-so-quiet long weekend, in which a Swede, Belgian and Irishman descended on the city of Berlin. Combined with the Berliner triumvirate of British, Cypriot and German Eurovision fans, Germany's capital city suffered an onslaught of drunkenness and debauchery. Armed with Netto's finest rum, Macedonian wine, vodka, lots of beer and old Eurovision DVDs we trashed poor Costas' house and annoyed his neighbours with 4 days of incessant partying. But let's start from the beginning.

Meeting Noel and Jonas at Alexanderplatz, we located "Bundeskammer", *the* "scene" pub in Berlin alledgedly. What it was, was actually a tiny little shack underneath the train tracks, and it was full of fagahags and old men. One of which started waving and blowing kisses at us. We didn't hang around there long. After we picked up Geert we got the train to Costas. Where a woman on the S-Bahn told us to stop talking as her baby was sleeping. Geert then got an earful after laughing in her rude (and blotchy) face. "Is that problematic for you?" Silly bint. Thursday night involved a trip to my favourite bar ever, Roses. It involved my broken belt being used as a head accessory, a plant being smuggled in someone's pants and Costas snogging a lesbian. And the hangover the next day may have had something to do with the fact that we were still drinking beer while in bed - always a bad sign!

Friday was spent recovering, with a quick McDonalds trip to get us all a Big Tasty meal to aid the hangover healing. We also watched Wanda Sykes - I'd highly recommend checking her out for yourself - she is hilarious. Then it was time for the Eurovision party at local gay club SchwuZ.It began with a pre-show karaoke. That was actually great fun. When we arrived a pretty girl was masterfully singing "Oro", but we soon changed the mood. Me and Noel kicked things off with Serebro, and then we all (except Geert - he doesn't do karaoke) worked our way through a multitude of ESC hits, including Comme Ci Comme Ca, Peace Will Come, This Is My Life, Aufrecht Geh'n, Nur ein Lied, Vi maler byen rod, I evighet, Puppet on a String, and Illusion (that one didn't go down so well!). And that part of the evening was rounded off nicely with group sing-alongs to Hallelujah and Neka mi ne svane. Then it was on to the partying time in the club. While this is much more blurry in my mind, I recall landing on top of a girl while re-enacting Sakis' 2009 entry. She then bought me beers and gave me her phone number! Surreal! Also I remember Linda being played, without me asking, and I managed to get Jonas to stay long enough for us to round off the night with a dance to Someday, which was a perfect end to the night.

Saturday, we watched the Finnish final, and though somewhat saddened that Heli didn't win (Ratastan sua!), we had a good night and Thomas brought along some alcoholic sweets and joined in the festivities, which included watching two Melodifestivalen shows, and the entire ESC 2000. The cheers when Belgium got 2 points were deafening! On Sunday, we took Geert to the bus, and then went for brunch at some very nice place in Prenzlauerberg. I was in my infamous "4 days drunk" state, and just rambling nonsense while people tried to eat. So the only solution was to drink some more that night, which included watching ESC 1957, 1975, 1980 and probably some others. There were sofa dancing re-enactments aplenty and generally a fun but chilled wind down ending to a pretty tiring and crazy weekend.

February sees the start of a desperate hunt for another job - then hopefully I can start re-enjoying Berlin to the max, and blogging my exciting adventures more regularly. But January was the month I first truly felt like I belong here, it wasn't about the partying, but just about existing, living a normal everyday life in the city of my dreams. It may not have been non-stop craziness (until the final weekend!), but I still enjoyed it all very much.