Happy New Year ... With Love From Sydney ...

While you were sleeping, or drinking coffee or brunching somewhere special, Syndey welcomed in 2007 ...

Already we are 10+ hours into the New Year and most of you reading this haven't even left your house to go out on the town to celebrate your New Year's Eve! Just to give you an idea of how far ahead we are, here's what you were doing when I was standing under the Harbour Bridge celebrating the arrival of 2007 ... my friends in London were most likely having a leisurely brunch somewhere at 2:00 PM Sunday afternoon ... my friends and family in Chicago and New Orleans were either still sleeping or just waking up to a cup of coffee at 7:00 AM Sunday and my loved ones in California were most likely still sleeping ... at 5:00 AM Sunday! Happy New Year!

Sydney is, perhaps, the first major world city to celebrate New Year's ... only cities to the east of us celebrate beforehand -- and those are mainly islands -- the world clock in my phone says that the Kingdom of Tonga, which is the 176 islands of Polynesia, celebrates 3 hours before us, New Zealand, land of the Kiwis, and the Fiji Islands celebrate 2 hours ahead and Guam just one hour before us. Yes, we celebrated 2007 ahead of all the great cities of the Far East, such as Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore, Beijing, Bankok, New Delhi, and even ahead of all of Australia's western cities, like Perth and Adelaide. Don't you just love these geography lessons?

Well, you are on the verge of celebrating because it's late afternoon/early evening in the US and so time for making NYE plans is over -- you're about to do your plans and go out and party!!! So let me share 2007 in Oz with you.

This year, the City of Sydney celebrates the 75th Jubilee Anniversary of the Harbour Bridge ... and so the theme for this year's festivities is A Diamond Night in Emerald City ... you can see amazing pictures from last year's Harbour Festivities at www.sydneynewyearseve.com and check out how well organized they are since more than a million people will be watching from various places around the harbor -- not to mention those who have chartered boats to actually be in the harbor at kick-off time!

For those of you who've been to Mardi Gras you know what it's like to move through a sea of 1,000, 000 -- fortunately the way that Sydney sits on the coastline -- it's impossible to cram all 1,000,000 in just one area and so sites are scattered throughout the 15 miles of inlets that make up the harbor here. It makes things quite manageable, though the Sydney police were out in full force to make certain that these very civilized folks stayed that way ...

The night was relatively cool and we were expecting thunderstorms -- the clouds over downtown were ominous as David and I grabbed the train from Minto to head into town around 4:30 pm. With books, water and umbrella in hand, we were ready for an afternoon and evening of finding a comfortable spot to wait and eventually watch the fireworks, and hopefully, stay out of whatever rain might suddenly decide to fall from the heavens.

By the time we arrived in town, as we rode the train to our intended destination of Milson's Point, Bradfield Park, just across the harbor from the Opera House and under the Harbour Bridge in North Sydney -- we could see crowds littering the landscape from one end of the coastline to the other ... there was plenty of activity in the harbor itsself with boats, water taxis and ferries shuffling people from one area to another. For just $7 AU -- you can ride the trains, ferries and buses unlimited all day NYE -- with so many people to manage, the City has created a pay one price ticket so movement around and in and out of the downtown area remains free-flowing and easy.

Once we arrived at Milson's Point, it took us a while to find a place where we could get a view of the bridge and most of the central harbor area.

Since the harbor is so vast, the City has 6 fireworks barges strung out across the harbor plus the Harbour Bridge, spending well over $1 million AU dollars to light up NYE, not to mention what it spent to market, plan and move people around safely on this special night. NYE flags dot light poles throughout the downtown, and if you followed the link to the website, you can see how they tried to think of everything -- even down to telling you how many people each vantage point can handle, whether they have food/beverage at those sites, if streets are closed, restrictions on the site for bringing food and drink, how best to get there -- public transportation, of course, and so on ... it really is a herculean effort to make sure everyone has a perfect night.

After about an hour or so of wandering through the various areas on Milson's Point, we chose a spot under a palm tree near the water's edge ... just under the Harbour Bridge but far enough away to see the spectacular fireworks and light show celebrating A Diamond Night in Emerald City ...

Now I'm not exactly sure how Sydney got tangled up with Dorothy and the Wizard of OZ but here's a great link about it http://www.bdb.co.za/shackle/articles/emerald_cities.htm and one about the Harbour Bridge, as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Harbour_Bridge, which also gives you a little background on this year's symbols that were used to light up the bridge.

You'll see in my pictures a red lighted coathanger-- which is what Sydneysiders affectionately call the Harbour Bridge -- as it is created from so many thin wires that look almost exactly like coathanger wire. Now let me tell you, so many people know the Sydney Opera House and it is a pretty amazing site -- but the Harbour Bridge is something special -- it is like the Eiffel Tower of the Southern Hemisphere and is so big and awesome that when you first see it -- you're kind of struck dumb for a moment -- that was my experience of the Eiffel Tower (if you can imagine me not talking for about 10 minutes after my first view of ET)!

I thought that the Opera House would be the same kind of experience for me -- but it was the Harbour Bridge that shut me up! Standing under its huge pylons and endless iron and steel structure last night and hearing trains and cars above made me feel the same affection for it that most Sydneysiders have -- it is so massive -- like a gentle giant looming over this vast city -- guarding and guiding it in the same way the ET reaches out over Paris ...!

While we waited for the festivities to begin, the sky above seemed destined to open up and pour on us, the wind picked up and it was downright cool and a bit humid -- but the weather held, though the clouds never budged and much of the aerial shows that were planned didn't happen, as a result -- though the sky was filled with news, police and city helicopters managing the harbor and city below. David read while I took time to just wander around and people-watch. I love peoplewatching no matter where I am but I think during celebrations you get to really see people in a myriad of circumstances.

One thing about Sydney is that it is a highly international, multi-cultural city -- but unlike the US where most of our international non-native population is from Europe, Mexico, South America and the Carribbean -- here everyone is from the Far East, India and the Pacific Islands. Like the US, you will hear hundreds of languages and dialects -- but yet people are basically the same. Whether the kids are from Tokyo, Singapore, New Delhi, Fiji or New Zealand -- they all have their I-Pods and backpacks and their tattoos and piercings. Their parents fret and worry just like our parents -- and just like us -- they want their kids to be happy, they go to work, ride the train and eat pizza along with their traditional homeland foods.

I think that's what I love about traveling -- it makes the world so much smaller ... you get to realize close-up that basically, people are the same everywhere -- we all want the same things -- their kids need the same kind of love and attention that our kids need -- teenagers are worried about the same things we worried about -- teenage girls still dance together more than with boys ... the world is not so different from one place to another.

At 9:00 PM, the City sets off the first round of fireworks so that families can get their kids home and to bed -- it's followed by a boat parade that goes on and on for the almost 3 hours until midnight. Public and private boat owners dress up their yachts and ships with lights, flags and all sorts of decor to reinforce the theme of the evening -- so we had a lot of emerald green lights and diamond shapes this year. From paddlewheelers, to tall ships to ferries to yachts of everysize -- owners went all out to create a parade of floating celebration that had kids and adults alike doing the usual oohs and aahs.

That's something I really have noticed about Sydney -- everybody pitches in and it's always, "Mate this and mate that ..." even if you're aggravated with someone, it's "Mate ...!" Nobody really seems to get angry here -- it's very civilized in a British sort of way -- only very definitely Aussie-style!

After the 9:00 PM fireworks -- I took another walkabout, so to speak, to get away from the harbor breezes as the night continued to cool down -- families were leaving being replaced by more adults who waited to come down.

By 10:30 PM a whole new crowd of folks had arrived and David and I took a little snooze on our comfey groundspot. People all around us were gathered with thier families, or lovers or groups of friends -- the young couple next to us passed the time eating roasted chicken, drinking champagne and reading Memoirs of a Geisha to each other, that is when they weren't on their cell phones calling friends and loved ones to roust them out to come and play with them or just to say Happy New Year to someone they loved!

We woke at around 11:30 PM as we could hear the crowd start to shuffle a bit, anticipating the coming light show. By this time the red question mark and coathanger were gone, replaced by a lighted diamond with sparkling light effects around it -- the Harbour Bridge all in dark except for this, waiting for it grand moment. Soon, we were up on our feet, positioning for a space to shot photos of both fireworks we could see -- three of the barges were near us and the spectacular display we were sure was to happen on the Bridge.

As the countdown grew nearer, the crowds began to pack in and turn to watch and then finally, the 10 second countdown was projected on the bridge pylon and the 5000+ people at Milson's Point began to shout 10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1... and then boom the fireworks started! Both David and I started shooting pictures capturing the bridge and the harbor barges as best we could -- some where in the middle of all that we managed to squeeze in a few Happy New Year kisses and indeed it was a special moment that I'll remember for a long time. Spectacular fireworks shown all over the place -- so many that you could barely standstill for turning to see what special combination exploded next and then ... the bridge went off for the first time!

Since the bridge is a huge arch -- they are able to scroll the fireworks from one end to the other, as well as having the entire arch fire at once -- they did both complemented by an incredible light show from underneath that painted the bridge in a variety of greens and purples and bathed the whole harbor in a stunning light show.


A fireworks barge in front of the Opera House, cast stunning lights and shadows across its face, giving it at times a festive, and at other times, an eery smoky look throughout.

It all happens so fast ... you wait all evening and in 15 minutes it's over. The Harbour Bridge fired three spectacular times -- lighting up the harbor with an emerald green glow that truly did turn the whole city into Emerald City for just a moment in time -- I can't wait to see the photo the City chooses to show off this year's festivities! I know it will be as stunning as last years!

With that, the evening ended as we made our way through thick crowds back to the train station for our long journey home -- we were both tired but David is such a night owl that it didn't take him long to perk up and make sure we ended up on the right train to Minto -- about and hours ride southwest. I napped almost the entire ride while David read and kept watch ... and then we were home -- off to dreamland in OZ except I wrote this blog in my head all night so that I could say Happy New Year to all ... from Sydney with Love ...!