New Year's Eve
Here in the Slowlane we celebrated New Year's early. At 8:45 we all gathered around with our jelly jar glasses and sparkling cider (Please note: when buying cider in a foreign country, check the alcohol content.) we toasted, drank, redistributed the alcohol to those who appreciate it, and then said goodnight.
Where as some people count it an exercise to stay awake until midnight on New Year's Eve, here in Brazil it is much easier to stay awake than it is to go to sleep. People take New Year's celebrations very seriously here and so they test their fireworks and acetylene bombs early to insure a good time of it come midnight. These tests start at about mid November. Then they increase with frequency. On New Year's Eve Day people must double, triple, and quadruple check the quality of their supplies and many begin as early as possible on New Year's Eve Day... that being 12:00 am.
But by 9pm on December 31, those people of our party who had to make an airport run by dawn thought they should head to bed. At 9:45 pm and explosion outside rocked the house, left a pounding in my ears, and brought smoke drifting through the house. The insuing shouts confirmed my suspicion that the geniuses outside were now deaf.
At 10:10 my sister's housemate began calling all of the people she knew to wish them a Happy New Year, so that they wouldn't feel obliged to call her at the more traditional time of 12:10.
At 11:00, the noise in the street was increasing and I decided that the worst of the noise would be over at midnight and so I might as well start my bed time routine so that I could go to sleep immediately after the big finale.
Midnight did bring a big finale, it just so happened that it was not the final finale. Perhaps several of the deafened geniuses missed this time zone's midnight.
And then, of course, there was all of the left over fire works that had to be finished off...
By the afternoon of the first, not even the dog stirred when there was another round of firecrackers.
Where as some people count it an exercise to stay awake until midnight on New Year's Eve, here in Brazil it is much easier to stay awake than it is to go to sleep. People take New Year's celebrations very seriously here and so they test their fireworks and acetylene bombs early to insure a good time of it come midnight. These tests start at about mid November. Then they increase with frequency. On New Year's Eve Day people must double, triple, and quadruple check the quality of their supplies and many begin as early as possible on New Year's Eve Day... that being 12:00 am.
But by 9pm on December 31, those people of our party who had to make an airport run by dawn thought they should head to bed. At 9:45 pm and explosion outside rocked the house, left a pounding in my ears, and brought smoke drifting through the house. The insuing shouts confirmed my suspicion that the geniuses outside were now deaf.
At 10:10 my sister's housemate began calling all of the people she knew to wish them a Happy New Year, so that they wouldn't feel obliged to call her at the more traditional time of 12:10.
At 11:00, the noise in the street was increasing and I decided that the worst of the noise would be over at midnight and so I might as well start my bed time routine so that I could go to sleep immediately after the big finale.
Midnight did bring a big finale, it just so happened that it was not the final finale. Perhaps several of the deafened geniuses missed this time zone's midnight.
And then, of course, there was all of the left over fire works that had to be finished off...
By the afternoon of the first, not even the dog stirred when there was another round of firecrackers.
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