Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Calennig (celebrating a special night)

I was feeling kind of lonely on New Year's Eve and decided the last thing I wanted to do was bring in the start of 2011 -- my first New Year's in Wales -- sitting in my apartment watching television.

So I headed to the City Centre, where the day before a carnival midway had been set up on the length of Museum Avenue and there were to be fireworks set off at midnight. This carnival and celebration beat November's Sparks in the Parks mudfest by a landslide. What a fantastic sight.

The midway on Museum had amazing rides with the brightest lights I've ever seen. Perhaps they were LED lights, I don't know, but the colours were vivid and the rides first-class scary. It was such a grand setting, nestled between the National Museum of Wales and the University of Wales on one side and City Hall and Alexandra Gardens on the other.

On the far side of City Hall the street was open with loudspeakers and big screens presenting the bands as they played. Before the midnight fireworks and countdown, glam band T. Rextasy blasted through the balmy night. People of all ages, families with little ones in tow, bopped and boogied, some sober, others feeling no pain. Before the countdown the announcer asked who had experienced a bad 2010 and who had enjoyed a good year. The applause split the year -- good and bad -- 50-50.

As 2011 began the crowd sang 'Auld Lang Syne' quietly, gently and couples danced slowly in the street.

A good start.

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