And let me tell you... They have quite some traditions on New Year's Eve. I noticed something was up when walking home from work I noticed 3 separate massive piles of wood. There was a police officer nearby and he said that at midnight all of the local municipalities light up the piles to welcome in the new year. Cool.
I got home around 5pm and we immediately headed over to the Kupper's house for the evening. They invited us over for dinner and games to welcome in the year. We had a good time, ate a lot of food, played Scene-it, and chatted the evening down. A traditional meal for New Year's Eve is "Gourmet", without a silent "t". Since the Kupper's had just returned from the US the day before, we didn't get to eat it on the day, but they invited us over for dinner again 2 weeks later for the experience (i.e. picture is not from New Year's Eve).
Everything on New Year's really centers around fireworks. It is the central event of the day. This year everyone was a little worried that the fireworks show would be overshadowed by a heavy evening fog. Lucky for us the fog lifted prior to the show(s).
The primary difference between Holland and the US with fireworks is everyone buys their own. Now, I know people buy their own in the US too. But, it's different. In Holland, "everyone" buys their own. Literally, every other house purchased a set of works. They weren't the small sparkler sets either. They were the big bomb busters that light up the sky.
Before we got over there Rachel mentioned that it would be like a war zone. Yeah right was our combined response. Okay. She was right, we were wrong. It gets so big that the communities block off all trash cans and mail boxes to prevent kids from blowing them up.
It was incredible. The sky lit up like the 4th of July in DC, the air quickly filled with the pungent scent of sulfur, and people up and down the street scrambled as each improperly mounted "boom-fire" tipped over. It was really cool. I don't think Amanda or I have ever seen anything like that before.
After the fireworks, we made our way home and then stayed awake (with Jacob) until about 3am when most people stopped shooting off fireworks.
