happy new year!!!

i spent my evening of the 31. in london with my friends (we were 8 in total) to watch the fireworks. it was quite an adventure!! we arrived in london at 5 o'clock in the afternoon and had dinner in an italian restaurant. after that, we went to trafalgar square, we thought we could see the fireworks from there, but after standing around there for an hour (until 9) we found out that the fireworks are mainly situated around london eye at the river, so we had to get to another place. the city organised viewing areas; on a plan we got it said some viewing areas already close at 9 because of the crowds. so we had to hurry up, and when we arrived at the viewing area around the houses of parliament, everything was closed already - but we had another chance, we went to the riverside down to waterloo bridge, where we managed to get quite a good place to watch. we were stuck between loads of people and had to wait for about 2 hours until it was 12 o'clock. then, the big moment: fireworks!!! 

it was really good - it was only ten minutes, though, i expected it to be longer... but it was nice!! after the fireworks, everyone wanted to get out of the viewing areas - it took us almost an hour for a route you can normally do in 10-15 minutes :D it really would not have been something for claustrophobic people... then, we wanted to get home - asap - but it was a bit more complicated than we thought. the plan was that a minibus-cab would pick us up (one of my friend's host father is a taxi driver, he could arrange a cab to pick us up) because there were no trains. the cab driver called dave wanted to pick us up at about 2 o'clock at waterloo bridge (where loads of people stood before for the fireworks), but the roads weren't free at two yet... we asked some police men and they said the streets would be free again at abou 4!! we obviously didn't want to wait for such a long time, so dave told us to take the tube to get a bit out of the centre, were the roads wouldn't be closed anymore, but there was a 2 hours queue to get into the tube station... no option! but finally, dave could get closer to the place we were at about 3 o'clock, and we just had to walk for ten minutes until we finally met him. because of the traffic, it still took us a little while until we were at home, i arrived at home at quarter to five... then, i couldn't really sleep because i was too tired - now i look like a zombie. it was an experience, fireworks in london, i won't forget about it so soon, but i never want to do it again :D

guess who is going to bed early today :P