Guten Rutsch!

or in English... good sliding!  Doesn't make much sense?  I didn't think so either, until it was explained to me that the wish is for good or easy sliding into the new year with good health, good fortune and good friends (and family of course!)  After learning this, I admit I may have gone a little overboard in wishing people "good sliding!!"

We celebrated the New Year with a bang.  Or rather, about 5 million bangs.  Dresden on Sylvester (or New Year's Eve) is wild!!

We started out the evening calmly with a fondue dinner at our German friends' house.  We drank bellinis and watched the funniest show ever- "Dinner for One".  Apparently all Germans watch this show every single year on Sylvester.  It was so funny that it will definitely be a new tradition in my house!

You MUST watch this!!



We went downtown (so we pretty much walked out our door) for the New Year's Eve fireworks celebration at about 11 and it was already crazy!

People are allowed to set off fireworks in Dresden just for December 31, and it appeared that everyone was!  I was a little worried that someone was going to blow a hand off or catch someone on fire, but for all the explosions around us, no one got hurt!

We met a nice couple from Frankfurt (I learned from my German teacher today that Sylvester is the only time Germans are nice to other people) and shared some champagne.  They were nice enough to take our picture:

At midnight everyone went crazy!!  There was a fireworks show put on by the city and EVERYONE was shooting off their own fireworks!  I have never seen or heard so many fireworks from so many different directions for such a long time in my whole life.  I'm so glad we were here to experience it!!

Best wishes for a fantastic New Year to all my friends in all the places you are!  I miss my NH, NY, VA and TX friends and hope to see you soon, and am thankful that I have all my Dresden friends here!