Under the Bridge

So, here we are now in the year 2008. As about every year I realise that it feels like the year before, and the one before that and all the others before as well. Just this time with the difference that I'm at the other end of the world. When I already prepared for bed again my folks at home were just waking up with a hangover, cursing the new year for beginning with a headache while the streets outside look like a major riot scene. Both wasn't the case here as even though I was mightily pissed the long walk home (more than an hour) sobered me down quite a lot. And fireworks here aren't available privately and something the Aussies leave to professionals who know how to go about the whole business without blowing off body parts. They rather blow off the whole fireworks factory. That's what happened just this december.

Likely you also want know what I did before walking home. Well, mostly we were killing time and alcohol. Yet it has to be mentioned that at temperatures of 30 degrees (Celsius) you are probably full before the bottle is empty. The local ambulance had quite a busy afternoon. Where did it happen?

Under the bridge ... To be precise under one of the most famous bridges of the world (the Sydney Harbour Bridge) with direct view of the most popular opera house of the world. Funnily I could have had the view of a famous opera at home as well: 24 times per case of beer.

Yet all this didn't happen without some hurdles on the way into oblivion. Some of our people got there really early by a time where I hadn't even left my bed. They weren't searched on entering the area and passed on this information to my friend and me who came a lot later. Unfortunately that wasn't the case anymore and full bag search operations were undertaken. So my friend and me stood there with a whole case of beer (24 bottles of 375ml) in front of a gate sporting signs saying: „No glass, No BYO Alcohol“. Just great! It's a tiny bit difficult to hide 24 bottles of beer in a backpack.

After one hour of sitting close to the gates we had finished 12 bottles between the two of us and then it happened: One police patrol came by saying nuthin', then another one saying nuthin' and the third one then loomed as huge shadows over us (Yeah, finally some shadow! Shit!), asking if we are aware of the fact that this is an alcohol restricted zone for about an hour by the time. Erm, no? Anyway, we had to somehow get rid of the rest of our booze as fast as possible to avoid a charge. So what did we do? We sold it to the next best group of idiots for a marginal total loss of $3. These guys must hate us now as on entering the event area we could just see how our patrol went up to them with a big smile on their faces. Such is life ...

At nine we had our first fireworks as they seem to use every kind of excuse to show off their pyrotechnics. This time it was the beginning of the new year in a time zone lucky enough to be first one to trade the 7 for an 8. Hours later I was busy spilling my wine over other people's feet during group picture posing sessions (there is brilliant footage of that *g).

Then it became very, VERY LOUD and it was officially 2008 in Sydney as well. Both the fireworks were quite nice but honestly not as amazing as I expected them to be. Possibly because of the blown off fireworks factory I mentioned earlier. Yet the people around as went absolutely nuts every time something fired off the bridge, meaning from directly above us. Loonies!

Sometime later we and thousands of other people were cattle-walked across the bridge back to our side of Sydney, which was a bit shitty. Try to enjoy a magnificient harbour view when you get an elbow in the kidneys every 10 seconds ...

Altogether it was quite a nice and fun NYE: Celebrating the new year completely shitfaced at the other end of the world right in the middle of a giant family BBQ while my friends at home are still busy rubbing the sleep out of their eyes.