A NYE to remember...

Wow, I had always heard amazing things about NYE in Sydney, but didn't really know what to expect. It is pretty hard to describe how incredible it was, but hopefully some of my pictures and videos can give you some idea.

As you all know by now, I have an amazing view from my balcony. So, I decided to stay here for NYE with my parents and a few friends from work. We had a table full of delicious appetizers and beer, wine and of course, some bubbly! It had been fascinating to watch the shorelines fill up with people all day and by the time my work friends got here around 7:30, there was just excitement in the air everywhere.

This first video shows all of the boats along the harbour and Lavendar Bay and you can see camera flashes from all over. It seemed like almost all pieces of land around my area were just covered with wall to wall people, so we were pretty happy to be enjoying the excitement from my balcony.

Here is our yummy food table and a few cute pictures of us before the action started!

There were 2 big fireworks shows...one at 9:00 and one at midnight. Those of you who know me well know how much I love Christmas lights. As soon as the 9:00 fireworks show was over, all of the boats in the harbour (not in the bays, just the harbour) simultaneously turned on all of these gorgeous Christmas lights on their boats. I was fascinated by all of the lights, so took a quick video to try to show the beauty! After they had been on for a while, all of the boats went on a parade around the harbour...must have been trying to give all of the different people a view of all of the boats. So pretty...

My work friends had a really nice camera, so they were able to get some awesome pictures of the fireworks. At the midnight show of the fireworks, not only do they have fireworks off the bridge, but they also have barges all along the harbour that shoot off the same fireworks at the same time. One of the barges was right at the opening of Lavendar Bay, so was pretty much right in front of my balcony, but we were able to see 3 barges. These pictures and video show the barges well!

This last video shows the fireworks from the bridge. I just thought that it couldn't get any better and then, all of a sudden, there were fireworks way up above the bridge...just amazing. And the ones showering down over the side of the bridge were so cool too!

The whole night was absolutely surreal and breathtaking. We were all pretty speechless for a few minutes after the midnight fireworks ended, but then we remembered to 'cheers' with our bubbly and to blow our horns and pop our poppers! It was pretty fun to hear all of the noise from the people down below and despite still having some jetlag, we were up until about 1:30 on 1/1/11! I am so incredibly thankful that I got to experience NYE while in Sydney and it will always be a NYE to remember...