December 30, 2006

Ringing in the New

My second New Year's Eve in Australia. I'm still definitely not accustomed to having it in summer. Today was a beautifully warm day and a lovely, cool night, and tomorrow should be much the same. Where I'm from, massive crowds of people will be huddled in the city centre in the freezing cold to watch a lit-up ball descend a pole, but here they'll be walking around in summer clothes watching fireworks over the river.

The thing for me is that, back in New York, I spent every NYE with my friends from university, at a party at the apartment in midtown with the best rooftop view of the ball dropping. Here, only a couple of people I know are having a party, and they're not particularly good friends, and they're also "before" parties to spend some time getting drunk at before heading off to clubs or bars, and I definitely don't relish going to some crowded club with a cover charge to drink overpriced drinks with strangers.

So it seems like it's anyone's guess what I'll be doing tomorrow. I'm thinking of possibly either watching the fireworks with a visiting houseguest, or going to a dressy Swing Dance Ball. A ticket isn't cheap and I'd probably be there alone, but on the other hand, dancing to swing music is the only thing this year that I've found that actually makes me feel really happy.

What do people do for NYE in some of the other countries represented here, I wonder? And is that what the rest of you (whether expats or natives) will be doing, or something else?

Posted by wildsoda at December 30, 2006 02:40 PM
Comments

In Austria, we have dinner with the family and drink a little champagne. Uncle Willi brings a boot full of fireworks from Germany and we stand them up in the snow and set them off across the meadow. This thrills the littler nephews - okay, all the boys. The Omas go inside and stand with their faces up against the glass trying to see the fireworks and probably praying no one blows off a finger. Then there are kisses all around and we wander off to bed. While we walk home, we watch the torchlight skiers come down the hill and plant the new year - 2007!- on the snowed over hillside in flames.

Previous years in Seattle, we've bundled up to see the fireworks off the Space Needle, but the last time we did this the fog was so thick that the flames looked like watercolor smudges on the sky. This year it looks like we're having movie night with snacks.

Posted by: Pam at December 30, 2006 04:54 PM

Some..

Posted by: Menezes at January 12, 2007 01:59 AM