‘You must come to Dresden! We will show you how we celebrate Silvester!
Our friend Uta drove carefully on the city streets to park the car near the Elbe River in Dresden. Clutching the bottle of champagne and three glasses, we made our way across the frozen ground, and past groups of people prematurely letting off crackers and rockets, hoping like mad they would not point them at us.
Uta set us up with a great view of the steeples, domes and towers of Dresden city, as the river flowed coldly in front of us, reflecting the floodlit buildings. It was -6 degrees at most. As midnight neared the brilliantly lit barrage increased. By midnight we could not hear the dozens of church bells ringing in the New Year because of the cacophony of sound. All around us were hundreds and thousands of rockets, explosions, shooting colours and sparkles across the sky.
We clung together for warmth and slowly circled, sipping the extremely well cooled champers, and watching the fireworks. There was no let up for at least 30 minutes of total exhilaration of exuberant firepower.
New Year arrived in Eastern German style for us this year.
No comments:
Post a Comment