New Years Eve 1999

So it's 2000... what an event!! We hope your New years went as well as our did (we froze but more on that later). We went up to Boston December 30th, we stayed at the Radisson in Boston, which is located right in the Central Business District.

The Radisson hotel wasn't too bad, a great view we'd been charged low hotel rates all along, although in the end they did slug us a bit, but it was worth it to be in the middle of Boston New Years Eve celebrations.

We took the opportunity Thursday night to do a quick bit of shopping around the place before getting into the First Night celebrations...First night is a little like the festival of Sydney except that to get into all the events you buy a badge costing $20 and that gets you into heaps of stuff, like Concerts etc, so there was a lot to do...

So we headed out for dinner, ended up at Cheers for dinner...the bar is really cool there (we've had our picture taken there in the past when I first came here...great dinner too, they make greatest buffalo (spicy) chicken wings!!

After that we went uptown to Tower Records and a few bookstores. We always peek into our favorite nooks and crannies there.

After that it was back to the hotel and to get ready for the next day. We awoke early to see the first new years on the island of Kiribati and then Gisbourne New Zealand...there was full 24 hour coverage provided on 4 networks here (the US networks ABC & CNN were probably the best)..8am arrived and Sydney just went off.

I missed Sydney so bad at that moment, I cannot begin to say how I felt sitting in that Hotel room...there looked to be a stack of boats on the harbor - we later found there were some 7,000 boats.

We saw a few more of the midnight celebrations around the world and then headed out into the morning light early to get into the first night celebrations, which started early...our Hotel was opposite Boston Common which is a huge park right in the middle of Boston, probably 2-3 times bigger than Hyde park in Sydney -it was as we started to walk across the park that we realized how underdressed we were - we thought we had dressed but it was so cold. So we went back to the hotel for a take 2 and then headed out again, this time a lot better prepared - the thing was the weather here has been so unseasonably warm in Connecticut that we hadn't really thought too much about walking around in Boston.

We spent much of the day looking around Boston. We went to Quincy Market which is a cross between Sydney's Queen Victoria Building and Paddy's Market. We also went over to the Aquarium to check out the marine life. Paul's favorite exhibit was the piranha exhibit and I liked watching the baby penquins. Paul even made a new friend while we were there.

We then headed back to the hotel briefly to refuel and get ready for what was turning into a long (and very cold) evening ahead. We headed back towards the common and walked down the street just outside the main fence...the crowds were already out in force and we couldn't get into the park, so we stood in the blocked off street and awaited the 7pm fireworks which were tied into midnight GMT.

We saw London going off on the jumbotron screen and then after the Boston Mayor's speech was a fireworks display on the Common - it was brilliant, 4-5 shells a second which lighting up the sky and echoing off the CBD walls. The kids around us loved the display. I thought it was amusing how the fireworks were lit off in the middle of a baseball field, Considering Boston's love of baseball and the Boston Red Sox.

After the fireworks ended we headed towards the Boston Harbor. It was going to be a very cold last night of '99 in Boston as we were to find out - the temperature was around 30F, or -1 C but by the time we reached the harbor and the wind chill factor came in it was more like 27F (-4-5 C).

We went into a bar on one of the wharves with a few of the assorted throng and had a few drinks - by this stage, any TV was handy to see what was going on around the world by now, so we stayed there about an hour or so then we headed back out.

This turned out to be a mistake as our tolerance (or what we had of tolerance) for the cold was gone. We headed out right to the end of this huge main wharf where by now a huge crowd was - gathering.

The wind off the harbor was completely chilling us all and it was sort of like everyone trying to hide behind one another...the wind wasn't great but enough to provide that extra chill - definitely gloves and earmuffs standard issue.

That last hour prior to midnight just about killed us - (we still have lips that feel like Mick Jagger imitations today!!) All eyes were on them main clock in the center of town and the laser display.... midnight came and minus Auld and Syne (which was played in the town square) the fireworks were let off from a barge in the harbor...the celebrating was full on and lots of hugging took place, (as much for self preservation as anything else)....we had fun though.

We headed back through town across the common to our hotel - the mess was incredible, although nothing like the 20 tons of rubbish that was dumped in New York...we got into our room and attacked the champagne as we watched Chicago, and Las Vegas and Hollywood enter the millenium.

We both think Sydney did the best job of celebrating the new year out of all the cities (and because of the time difference we got see just about all of them). Anyway it was simply brilliant -what they did with the opera house and the harbor bridge was nothing short of excellent!!

We intentionally leave New York out of calculations as they know New Years Eve backwards and you know they'll put on a show - that's New York!!

Our Celebration Rankings (Excluding New York) 1) Sydney 2) Paris 3) London 4) Washington 5) Egypt/Pyramids

PS - y2k has not eventuated here to date although we now have a video recorder that is now a video player (we tried to program record on it and it wouldn't take), as well as a camera that now has no date stamping facility!!