Having arrived in Berlin only that morning at 6am from the big flight back from Australia, we had slept most of the day away in order to try and recover. We knew that the event area was gated, had bag and security searches due to fears about terrorism-related activity and they would close the gates when it was considered the area was full. The key was to try and get in before it was full and they closed the gates, so we arrived at the entry about 7.30pm. We got in, we wandered around the fairground with the rides and drinks, and even went for a ride up the Ferris Wheel which was an open-sided affair and could actually be spun round in a circle - this seemed neat until you got spun and you realised its actually kind of terrifying! It was also kind of cold, being winter and all of that.
The gates ended up closing about 9pm instead, which was when they deemed it full and told everyone not to try and work your way up to the front anymore - but unless you were right at the front, there was plenty of room to move around and it wasn't packed in general by any stretch of the imagination! we found a spot in the middle of the closed-off road near one of the large screens where we could see the main stage clearly but also get a close-up view of what was going on. There were a lot of music acts happening, some of which we recognised from the German songs we've listened to and others we didn't know of. The headline act of the event was Jermaine Jackson, brother of Michael Jackson and one of the members of the Jackson 5 and he sung us into the New Year, at which point there was a large and impressive fireworks display let off - although I swear I've seen better displays in Wellington for Guy Fawkes. By now we were flagging a little bit, so started making the move towards home and we determined the best way would be to catch the S-Bahn from the nearby Hauptbahnhof (main station) and then catch a tram from Alexanderplatz rather than try and get to the S-Bahn station at the Brandenburg Gate.
This involved walking across the park in front of the Reichstag, and across the bridge and plaza area in front of the Hauptbahnhof. It was during this walk we started experiencing something we'd been told about - people letting off their fireworks in public. These aren't just any fireworks though, don't think of the crappy fireworks we so often get in New Zealand for Guy Fawkes - these are the old more decent kind, the skyrockets and everything like that kind, and apparently often imported illegally from Poland. Naturally, they are a bit overpowered and dangerous but what was just incredible to see what the many, many small groups of people just letting off their fireworks - and they always had more to let off. The air was thick with the gunpowder fumes and all manner of coloured lights coursing their way into the skies. At a few points we paused to watch some of them, but as we got closer to the Hauptbahnhof I started becoming more aware of how we were potentially in the firing line as there was a lack of care in which direction people were firing them off in. Just as we neared the entrance doors to the Hauptbahnhof some people lit some fireworks and Sasha wanted to pause to watch - I responded by moving her hurriedly into the revolving door, explaining that we were in the firing line and it would be better to watch them from behind the glass wall. We ended up spending some time up on the open air platform which is a few stories above ground, watching all the fireworks go off over central Berlin.
We ended up at home, and one thing had become very apparent was the huge mess of all the spent fireworks and attendant rubbish all over the streets and footpaths as people just left the mess everywhere once they'd let them off. The noise in our street, which is usually very quiet was quite something - you could hear fireworks going off all the time, some with incredibly big booms and every so often one was much louder because it was much closer. I've never been in a war zone, and I hope I never do - but the noise of those fireworks going on, and on, and on, and on all night long must be what it can be like when a city is being shelled.
We didn't venture out the next day (still recovering quietly from the jet lag), but could still hear the occasional firework being let off. Berlin must drain Poland and wherever else these fireworks come from dry for New Years and the amount of gunpowder that had been let off probably helped push Berlin close to its annual pollution limits for a year in one day! I've never seen or heard anything like it, and what was also surprising was when I headed off to work on the 2nd was the clean streets - those same streets which had been trashed to hell, were now clean like nothing had ever happened. Berlin must have one really big and effective cleaning army on the 1st January each year!
So that was goodbye 2016, hello 2017 - what is in store for us this year?