Well, all in all, Germany is quite a peaceful and safe place. Kids walk to school alone with no fear, no one really has guns, people seem to keep to themselves, life is peaceful and good. But all that changes about 3 days before New Year’s Eve.It all began when some kids down in the park by our house started, seemingly innocently, lighting off some small firecrackers on the 28th of December. Hey, I liked fireworks and blowing up things as a child too, so I would not deny them this pleasure in Germany. But it does seem the size and availability of the munitions here are much more serious and potentially limb damaging than what we can get in the states (where fireworks are mostly illegal anyway).

As the afternoon wore on the bangs became louder, but then near 10pm subsided back to tranquility and peace. “No big deal”, I thought. The next day the same thing began but towards evening some rockets joined the fray as well as some pretty tall roman candle-type devices. The size of the “firecrackers” were up too, seriously, 1/4 stick-dynamite-style by now and quite unnerving for someone who hasn’t even seen combat.

Curious about where we could “see the fireworks” we asked at the local restaurant where should go to view the spectacle. The server looked puzzled, and now we know why: there isn’t one, everyone just does their own private, “professional” display.

Below is a video of the event. Mostly it just paints a picture in sound, it does however give you a sense on what we witnessed from our balcony on New Year’s Eve. Think: Gulf War I, you know, the short one. Now I have have a slight inkling how the reporters filming with thier cell phone cameras from the Bagdad Hilton felt.

Next year I hope to find out where to buy some.