New Year's Eve (Late's Better Than Never)

Before New Year's Eve, I wrote a post and then abruptly lost it (although Greg said he got it ??). In any case, it would have gone something like this:

Happy New Year's! We've had a great, jam-packed year and look forward to the next one. In Munich, they light fireworks [a severe understatement as you'll see below], eat little pink marzipan pigs for good luck and drink a special fire drink (although I don't know what's exactly inside).

Now, here's what I'll add to the above statement after actually going through New Year's Eve in Munich. It's insane. From the middle of the morning on, you could hear anxious party-goers begin lighting their fireworks. Greg even saw them light fireworks in the subway station. They were not environmentally friendly or safe when it comes to New Year's Eve, let me tell you.

We couldn't even think about sleeping until after 1 am because everyone on our street had to run out of their fireworks stockpile (enough for any small town USA, no joke). On the good side, we got to see everyone else's fireworks from the safety and warmth of our home. And enjoy we did!!

People had professional fireworks - not just the sparklers and bottle rockets common on the US' Fourth of July. They had the ones that curly cued and squiggled in glittery gold; bright, hot white sparks shot from a free-standing monsterous sparkler; green, red and blue pom-poms burst, then faded into sparkly dust; and streaks of all kinds of color launched into the air. Throughout all this, Scoots thought our house was under siege and remained alert in case he needed to defend his brown blanket.

I don't think I've adequately expressed just HOW MANY fireworks there were going off. From every angle you saw, fireworks were shooting out and they were so close because they were basically were our neighbors' own private fireworks show, every 50 feet or so. Halfway through the fun in the streets, the smoke from the explosions had already settled into a thick fog, obscuring the people below us and the kindergarten yard across the street. It was that crazy.

The Germans definitely rang in the new year with a bang... bangbangbangbang... bang.