Symphonic Cacophony

Looking out my window this morning, I find myself still searching the skyline for the occasional burst of color and light that made yesterday so distracting. I just couldn't stay awake long enough to post last night, but the Dutch version of New Years' celebration was utter chaos compared with what I would guess ya'll just experienced back home. In the states, whenever I've seen fireworks displays, it's always been an organized event. You go to the fairgrounds, the city center, somewhere that could handle a lot of people, safely and with supervision. Not so here.

Can anyone remember a movie with a bad guy in a high rise building looking out over a huge city and playing conductor to Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture while blowing up buildings in time with the music? I want to say it was Jack Nicholson's version of the Joker, but I can't reacall. Anyways, it was kind of like that.

Up in our glass tower, it felt like all of Holland was trying to put on a show just for us, competing for our attention on all sides. People have been shooting off fireworks sporadically for a week now, but it still didn't prepare me for the hour long symphonic cacophony that surrounded our living room, touching off at midnight. The sky became a solid block of noise and lights to vie with Las Vegas hottest strip. From around 7pm on until about 2:30 in the morning it just didn't stop, but the crescendo, from midnight until 1am, absotively posolutely dwarfed any ostentation I've ever witnessed. We saw huge blasts going up from the bus station, our own parking lot, directly over the freeway (and it's moving vehicles), with little or no concern for who might be walking by, or where the sparks may fly through the dry trees. Perhaps because everything is frozen solid, no one frets. There were slow floating red paper hearts gliding up and over our apartment in a gentle trail reminiscent of faeries en route to Neverland, somehow calming as they interlaced the glitz encircling them. One started its descent close enough to our open window to momentarily pull me out of the reverie. But a chance flicker of a nearby flash hefted it all the way across the freeway where we watched until it's fire guttered out on the frozen grass.

We opted to stay in, safe from the uncontrolled bedlam of the city center, and I'm glad that we did. Not that anything bad happened in Amsterdam (that we've heard of) but we had a splendid time running from end to end of our high perch oohing and ahhing over our personal stage. Pandemonium enough for one night :)