New Year's Eve Fireworks!

Since I have a lot to catch up on, the next series of posts are not going to necessarily be in chronological order.   Just so you know.

Ok - I gave you a teaser yesterday for the most exciting New Year's Eve fireworks ever, and after successfully grappling with technology I'm proud to present my first-ever YouTube video!  But first, an introduction to the video.  Unlike in CA and many US states, fireworks are legal in Berlin on new year's eve (and only then, as far as I understand).  So, starting well before midnight and continuing to who knows how long in the morning, people all over the city are setting these things off.  There are the bottle rockets, on sticks, that you stick into an empty champagne bottle (implications there, yes) to get it pointed at the sky and light; it zooms up and then explodes (there's a close up of one of these in the video), then there's the 'Batterie Feuerwerk', a square or cylinder block with a number of fireworks packed side-by-side; you light the fuse, stand back, and then in rapid succession each one explodes up and bursts into beautiful colors - this is the type we had, that you can see at the very end of the video.  I think ours had 40 rockets in it.  There was also a type that was quite a bit more dangerous, once lit it whirred around and up like a tiny pyrotechnic UFO.  The problem was that after whirling up a little, it whirred back down and around in unpredictable ways.  We watched one that had just sputtered out at the time it hit someone on the head (or maybe his shoulder).  I don't have any of those on the video.  Needless to say, there is quite a bit of trust in your fellow humans on a new year's eve like this... and I won't go into details because it makes me a little nervous to think about it.

But Teufelsberg really was the best place for this.  T's mother had a new years eve dinner party, so after enjoying 6 amazing courses (with wine pairings!) with 6 others over about 5 hours, T and I hastily bundled up at 20 til midnight, grabbed our Batterie Feuerwerk, and set off on foot through the light snow for Teufelsberg.

The Grunewald forest is a couple of blocks around the corner, and with a little running we just barely made it to the top of the hill at midnight.  Teufelsberg is the highest hill in Berlin, and is manmade - from all the city rubble after the war.  Wikipedia says it's 80 m, or 240 ft high, so it's really not that tall but you do have a view of the entire city, which is pretty flat.  It's kind of sobering to be standing on that hill and have what sounds like a war zone all around, with the fireworks.

There is plenty of space up there, and being a hill top at least you can see where people are setting off rockets, so it feels safer than being down in the city.  The snow didn't obscure the view very much, which was great, and in the middle of the video you can kind of see (and hear) the fireworks in the distance, at the horizon, which are the fireworks all across Berlin.  It was truly marvelous, so without further ado, enjoy the video! (Click here to see it in on YouTube)