so now it’s 2011. i began this blog two years ago, after emerging from a pitch-black tunnel into 2009, & one year ago i sat quietly around a little bonfire with my immediate family in a remote part of new zealand. last night i welcomed in 2011 with several hundred others amid the noisy chaos of german “sylvester”.

here in germany the catholics have made every day be a different saint’s day (some days have two or more saints attached to them) and new year’s eve happens to be sylvester, so that’s what everyone calls it; and they don’t say happy new year – before the event they say “guten rutsch”, literally meaning “good slide” (into the new year) and afterwards they say “guten neues” which is just “good new” – or at least, that’s what the bavarians say, because they are too lazy (so a bavarian tells me) to bother saying the whole thing.

it’s still possible to buy pretty much any kind of firework in germany – from bangers & sparklers to rockets, twirling things, shrieking things, ones that make loud explosions, and so on. the germans go crazy at this time with fireworks – the explosions started a few days ago & are still going on now, even in daylight. last night we went to see a public fireworks display in the nearby village of aubing, but there were so many competing fireworks (from neighbouring houses & also from people who brought their own fireworks with them to the public display) that sometimes there was so much smoke we could hardly see anything. afterwards the roads were littered with fireworks debris, & on the way home some kids fired something at the car. this morning the snow is brown and black with burned gunpowder, and scattered with packaging, spent fireworks, bottles and other rubbish. a giant party after which no-one could be bothered cleaning up. in bavaria alone, at least seven people died in fires and other accidents, and the fire, police and ambulance services had several thousand emergencies to attend. i’m sure the tax income from the sale of fireworks can’t be enough to justify these costs.

well, despite all of that – guten neues & happy new year!