Happy New Year 2007!

Sarah and I had an eventful evening while enjoying the New Year's Celebration in Krakow at the old town marketplace. There were many, many people watching the free concert (I would guess approximately 100,000-125,000 people in the market square), which had various types of music, from European dance music, to rock, to pop...but most songs were song in Polish. I think we were one of very few people that did not speak much Polish at all!! Eventhough we couldn't understand the announcers or singers, it did not dampen our spirits at all. We ate Kebab's (for the English speakers, they are Greek Gyros) on the street before walking over to the concert. For the first hour or so of the concert, we were enjoying watching the bands in "relative comfort and space," but as the night grew nearer to midnight, the people grew rowdier and the area around us became much more crowded. We then decided to leave the concert, and make our way over to the other side of the Sukiennice (the cloth hall in the middle of the market square), where the crowds were much more sparse. During the final few seconds of year 2006, Sarah enjoyed them by yelling out, "Szesc, piec, cztery, trzy, dwa, jeden!" (The countdown of the final six seconds of 2006 in Polish!) At the crack of 12 midnight, the fireworks show ensued!!! It was a spectacular display of fireworks that lasted about 5-7 minutes. The crowd roared, and many bottles of champagne were consumed by those around us.

It was a lot of fun to take part in an event like the New Year's celebration in another country. It is interesting to see the similarities and differences that our two cultures have.

Happy New Year's 2007! I hope this year brings all of you happiness and good health!