2017

I've never been a huge fan of New Year's Eve.  Typically, Glen and I eat a nice dinner at home, watch a movie and kiss at midnight if we haven't fallen asleep.  Also, because I'm from New York, I always figured that in Colorado I was living two hours in the past, so I was perfectly happy only making it to 10pm and watching the ball drop at Times Square, live on TV.

But being in Sydney, I felt a little bit different about New Year's Eve this year. Even before I met Glen and started regularly paying attention to what was happening in Australia, I vividly remember that US TV stations would show Sydney's New Year's Eve fireworks live, early in the morning on December 31 in the US.

Our friends Carolyn and Ian (an American gal married to an Australian guy, who we know from Breckenridge) invited us to a party in Carolyn's office in the Central Business District.

We ate Thai food in their neighborhood in Neutral Bay and then took a short bus ride into the city.  Her office is on the forty third floor of a building right near Circular Quay, with huge views of the harbor, the location of the famous New Year's fireworks. 

In all, there were about thirty other people gathered in her office.  We arrived just in time for the 9pm fireworks, which were amazing in their own right:  Fireworks were choreographed from different landmarks, with a few being shot off from the Harbour Bridge as well.  The next three hours went very fast as we sat in a group with drinks and snacks.

At five minutes to midnight, ten of us gathered in a corner office overlooking the Harbour Bridge.  There was a countdown on a pillar of the bridge and at midnight, I saw what is known as the most spectacular fireworks display in the world.  A river of fireworks streamed down off the bottom of the bridge and even bigger colorful blasts came off of the top.  The "BOOM" factor was huge and the whole thing lasted fifteen minutes. 

I was so excited to be able to see such a famous Australian tradition in person on my first New Year's Eve in Sydney.  The fireworks were even more incredible than I thought they'd be.  I was so impressed that the night didn't turn into some huge debacle getting in and out of the city.  More than 1.5 million people are in the CBD watching the fireworks, but it is the most well organized operation.  The city streets are closed to cars and depending on which direction you are heading to get home, you go to a different station where dozens of buses or trains are lined up to get hoards of people out of the city quickly.  Within 30 minutes of the display on the Harbour Bridge, we were crossing the very same bridge on a bus.

By 1:30 in the morning, we were 'back home' in the Northern Beaches ('home' right now is a house in South Curl Curl, where we're taking care of two dogs while their owners are on vacation in Colorado).

By 2:15am, we were asleep, and by 9am on New Year's Day we were awake, ready to face the day, and ready to face all the adventure 2017 in Australia has to offer.