New Year’s Eve / Silvester

It wasn’t until we were coming out of the metro in the mid-afternoon into Wenceslas Square and saw the large screen TVs and heard blaring music and saw crowds already gathering for a New Year’s Eve countdown party that I realized we were in a big capital city for New Year’s. While Prague probably doesn’t get the international media coverage of London or Sydney, it looked to be that type of event, and with the crowds even thicker that the other days, I’m sure it was.

We had a smaller New Year’s Eve celebration planned. The Hilton has been preparing a gala party for the last two days, creating a large stage in the middle of the lobby with monstrously large and loud speakers, an almost life-sized airplane and Eiffel tower soaring over the stage, and a large net of hundreds of balloons hanging from the ceiling waiting for midnight. Depending on the sumptuous feast you want to go along with your show and dance, tickets range from $250 to $375 each. We opted for something smaller than that as well.

We headed downtown for an early dinner, done in split shifts. Nikolas ate first at the restaurant of his choosing: McDonald’s. Then we ate at a real restaurant which Nikolas liked the looks of and thought would be a great place for us to eat (and for him to play while we ate). We, grownups, didn’t plan it that way. In fact, I think it might have been Nikolas’ suggestion, and it worked out perfectly for everyone. From there, we wandered through the busy streets to the Image Theater for a black light theater show. Black light theater is THE THING in Prague, and this was the same show we had taken students a couple years ago when Nikolas was almost two. It was lots of fun the second time around, and Nikolas adored it, sitting on the edge of his seat for an hour and a quarter. We finished off our outing with amazing ice cream at our favorite ice cream shop.

Arriving back at the hotel, things were just getting lively at the gala party, and we were glad that we had had the foresight to switch rooms from an inner courtyard room to an outside river room so that we would not be overlooking and overhearing the party all night. Nikolas happily went to sleep saying Merry Christmas to all (the concept of New Year’s doesn’t quite do it for him) and we had a quiet time reading and catching up on blogs until the hillsides across from us erupted in informal fireworks displays at midnight.

Happy 2009 to all!