Happy New Year 2008

Happy new year to all of you.

I hope you had as a good party as we had.

This year again, we went to the CBD to see the 9 o´clock firework as well as the 12 o´clock firework.

And this year we´ve been prepared. Two days earlier we went to the CBD , trying to find THE one spot!

And… we found it (had a backup spot just in case, though).

So Monday morning, 10 am, Thomas drove Gaby and myself into the City to mind the spot before everybody else would came later during the day. Otherwise the kids would have been bored by noon or so.

The two of us had a great time, heaps of drinks and things to eat, coffee, magazines, books, etc!

By the time all the others (21!!!!!! more) came, we haven´t hardly read anything, hadn´t eaten nor drank anything…. people surrounding us were too entertaining!! (This time I promise I will send some pictures to let you see the rising amount of crowds. When we arrived there were probably ten more spots minded, by midnight you couldn´t see any more lawn)

And, before I forget it, we didn´t get THE number one spot, but number two and I was really pleased the whole day with the great, undisturbed view to the Harbourbridge and the Opera right in front of us… loved it!!!!

We had nice chats with two of our “neighbours” there, exchanged even addresses.

By 6 pm everyone was there and the kids were so bubbly and excited! The crowds got more and more drunk but overall it was okay, nearly no fights, hardly any arguments. They said on the news today, with more than 1.5 million people just in the City centre they just had 94 people arrested across the whole of Sydney. Which I reckon is marvelous!

At nine o´clock the Family Firework started and itself was bombastic. It lasted around six to seven minutes and after that, the big hour glass installed on the Bridge counted down the hours till midnight! 

After that, two families left and some of the kids had a nap. The others kept themselves quite entertained till at midnight, the big firework started. And goodness me it was awesome!!!

As I wouldn´t know where to start to explain it, I hope to keep my promise asap and send you some of the pictures. They just did an amazing job to set the Bridge “on fire”. It was the best firework I have seen (and I saw the last three now!). Although I must say that I preferred the Heart in 2005 to the Hourglass, whereas Thomas preferred the hourglas… Anyway we agree that it was truly amazing allover again.

After we had packed our stuff we had to get to the nearest Trainstation which wasn´t a problem. We had to get on the Train, which wasn´t as easy. Last but not least we had to get home, which was problem!! That Train was more than packed (we expected that), it was slower the usual (okay, didn´t expect, but fine), no, I repeat NO (zero, null, cero, nill) aircon!!!! I´m not kidding, we had at least 45 to 48 degrees in that carriage. The kids looked like theyhave had a shower and just forgotten to take their cloths off. And instead of an hour it took us more than two to get home.

So far our experience with the trains obviously have been lucky as we never had any bad experiences before and were always wondering why everyone was complaining. Now we know!    And I can´t see why, I mean New Years Eve doesn´t come as a surprise, does it?

You know it at least a year before ;-)  , don´t you?

Anyway, we came home, after having a terrific day out there, enjoying the australian way of life in it´s perfection with the best ever firework and a couple of our best friends. Missed some others dearly though. But I can assure you: we thought about you heaps!!!!!!!!

Feel yourself huged and have a lovely, healthy, successful and happy 2008!!!!