I hope you had a lovely New Year's Eve/Day and are not feeling overwhelmed by the winter holiday season being over and that bringing in the inevitable return to work/college/school. I invite you to take the minutes it takes you to read this as an excuse to not think about that workplace/those exams/or that really annoying teacher of yours that you'll have to see really soon! Take a second to scroll down and listen to one of the fun songs listed at the bottom of this page and just chill while you read. :) I put those there for a reason, you know.
C and I celebrated New Year's Eve here in Mainz, and as much as I really am a fan of holidays in the U.S., I have to say I have never experienced such an incredible New Year's Eve. (My American friends - in Germany, they have fireworks on New Year's Eve. Why don't WE have fireworks on New Year's Eve??)
So, besides the base-level coolness of fireworks in the middle of winter, we are also in Mainz. With the Rhine (yes, it's spelled differently in English). Claudia and I walked down the many steps out of our apartment and down onto the street at about 11:30 at night and started to walk in the direction of the Rhine. As we walked, more and more people came from different directions, all headed towards the river. By the time we got there, it had really turned into a beautiful pilgrimage with people of all ages and kinds walking in pairs or groups or just alone in the middle of the street, no cars to be seen.
As we were walking, there were already the occasional bursts of light from an alley or booms in the sky from people who just couldn't wait until midnight to set off theirs. Eventually the pilgrimage river reached the banks of the actual river and spilled out in all directions. C and I walked down a path that runs parallel to the river with trees arching over on each side. We saw people walking around with sparklers and bottles of champagne and as midnight came nearer, more and more fireworks were bursting around us.
I was a little sad as I heard them all go, thinking that midnight itself would be less exciting since people couldn't seem to restrain themselves. I asked Claudia to check her cell phone to see how close to midnight we actually were -- and then the world exploded.
It was deafening and, in the actual meaning of the word, awesome. Awe-inspiring. All around us sparks and flames were dancing in the air, the noise was colossal and you couldn't even hear your ears ringing because there wasn't a minute when another firework wasn't racing its way into the sky right next to you. Anywhere we turned the sky was full of red, green, yellow, blue, white - people around us were kissing, smiling, laughing, wishing complete strangers a Happy New Year, and doing what we were doing - staring up into the sky with wonder. All the dancing sparks were reflected in the river, and when we looked across the river, we could see Wiesbaden (another large city that is only separated from Mainz by the river) and we watched as an endless rippling curtain of fireworks erupted over the houses on the far bank.
Claudia and I walked and watched, walked and watched, pointed and gasped, and eventually, after at least a half-hour of the amazing show, decided to make our way home. All the way I was thinking about how, unlike Christmas (which can tend to be a little sad after you grow up a bit and the magical Christmas you remember having as a kid never seems to happen again, even when you try your best to have it the same as it was), New Year's is almost always a happy holiday for me. And as I looked around at the people next to us on the streets, I didn't see anyone frowning. There were the blissfully happy couples, old and young, the families with children holding their ears shut at the sound of fireworks but still watching them with smiles they couldn't contain, here and there a person standing alone looking lost in thought (maybe with their minds wandering to a person he or she would rather have been standing there with - I've been that kind of person on New Year's before - there's kind of a poetic happiness to that, too, so I'm counting those people as happy), groups of teenagers roughly shoving fireworks into old bottles to get them at a good angle to shoot up into the sky (even if that's not my favorite thing to see on New Year's, at least they were glad to be doing what they were doing), and even as the streets echoed with the booms of the fireworks and the air became harder to breathe with all the excess smoke while, I still felt like I was walking in my own world.
After what really felt like an adventure navigating the labyrinth of smoke-shrouded streets with people setting off fireworks around corners, we made it back home. There was some staring out of the window looking over the train tracks and talking about all the things that we had done in the last year, and then we fell, very sleepily, into bed. Definitely the best New Year's Eve of my life. And so far, this new year has been pretty good as well.
We're headed to Frankfurt today to help look at a potential apartment for a friend of Claudia's, and that's a wonderful excuse to go back to the exquisite Thai restaurant we graced with our patronage the last time we were in the big city. I'm looking forward to it!
P.S. This vacation is fun. Why do classes need to start again?
P.P.S. I've been working quite a lot (well, a reasonable amount) on studying for my classes over break, and stochastics is starting to make sense! Wahooo!
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