Yesterday evening some friends and I celebrated New Year's Eve with some quiche, brussels sprouts, cheesecake, and Dresden Monopoly. After buying up the whole city we ventured down to the Elbe to have a look at the festivities. The festivities don't entail any publicly funded fireworks, all the fireworks shot off throughout the city are done by private parties. Basically it's just a mass of people throwing around lots of firecrackers (and loud ones from the Czech Republic, not the Black Cat kind I know from Indiana!) and launching lots of other fireworks that are illegal in Michigan and rather unsettling for me, considering that a lot of these hobby pyrotechnicians were probably a good 2.5 sheets to the wind, if not the full 3.
The real action came upon our return to the Neustadt at around half past 12. On Albertplatz we spotted a whole troop of cops in riot gear. Then we saw cars driving where the trams usually drive. Then we spotted a trash can ablaze right by the street, hence the cars taking a little detour. This was amusing until a fire truck came and put out the fire. On the short stretch of Alaunstraße back to my house, there were police officers in riot gear lurking behind every corner. This made it seem like a good idea to just head home and play with the bunnies.
For some reason, Waboose has been a little worked up lately. Maybe it was those finger monsters, funny rubber finger puppets, at Christmas that got up in his face, but he's really been in attack mode lately, charging at hands and stuffed animals, stamping his little bunny feet and grunting. It could also have been the loud fireworks the past couple days, this made the bunnies quite unsettled last year as well.
Today upon leaving and going out for breakfast, we came across lots of trash of course, and even some broken windows and fun stuff like that. We even spotted a guy trying to break into a pay phone to get out the money, but I think that was more of an every day thing, not just for New Year's.
So anyway, happy New Year! Boy, I thought 2005 would be good, but the way this year looks, I think it will be even more interesting!