NEW YEAR'S EVE AT SYDNEY HARBOUR

I missed it last year, and I wasn't going to miss it again this year. And with my whole family here, there was just no reason not to go. About a week before, I had to read up on the event on the internet, as the roads in Sydney were going to be closed to private vehicles, but the number of trains would be increased to accommodate the large number of people expected to attend the big event. Originally, we had planned to leave the house at 4 p.m. (to attend the midnight fireworks!) but we were moving veeeeerrrrryyy slowly that afternoon, as it was sooooooooo hot. The temperature was about 40 degrees. We finally got moving at some time past 5 pm. The walk to the train station is about 20 minutes so by the time we got there, we were feeling so dehydrated and wilted.




The first train that came was not airconditioned. We decided to wait for the next one because we just could not imagine taking the 1 hour ride in the sweltering heat. Luckily, there was another train in just 15 minutes. When we got to our train stop, we first had dinner at -- McDonald's and Hungry Jack's (Burger King to the rest of the world), then we proceeded to walk with the crowd towards Circular Quay. We walked on the streets, which gave us the feeling of the EDSA Revolutions. The kids were so amazed and excited at the fact that we were walking on the street and not worrying about getting run over by cars!



We found a spot across the Opera House, which unfortunately blocked our view of the Harbour Bridge. But we had many things to consider, like the people in our vicinity (whether they were smoking, or the type who would by midnight be rowdy and possibly violent). We were with 2 small kids and 1 (or 2, depending on your definition of the old and infirm) senior citizen so we had to find a "wholesome" spot. We laid out our mat and brought out our cheese, crackers, grapes (which were not to be touched until midnight). One of the first things I did was to buy myself a crown (which you will see in all my pictures for the rest of this entry). We bought light sabres for the kids. But we got a bit bored waiting for the fireworks to start.








This was taken at about 8 p.m. The crowd at the Opera House was starting to thicken.










As Edge and I walked down the street of pubs, drunken revellers in the street made faces and requested that I take their picture. One "bloke" put his arm around Edge's shoulders and told me to take a picture of him and "my boyfriend". I didn't bother to correct him.









HRH, the Queen Mother
















Of course, the kids did not sleep during the day. And since there were so many people and they couldn't really walk around on their own, they easily got bored. They fell asleep between the 9:00 and midnight fireworks. As midnight drew near, we had to surround them with our bodies to keep the crowd from stepping on them. At a few minutes to midnight, we woke up Diego and decided to just carry Luis as he slept.










Here are some pictures of the fireworks. The others didn't really come our so well because I didn't have a tripod and I've practically forgotten how to take pictures on manual mode so that evening was a great exercise in re-learning some basic photography principles.

Happy New Year from Ms. Filo-Australia 2006 and her court! This year, let's all strive to be beautiful! (You know what I mean!)

* mwa mwa *