Happy New Year 2011!

We had a terrific New Year's Eve! We all had dinner at Ernani's house (a family friend) in Copacabana. We were there for a while eating and dancing before heading over to the beach.

Me and my brother in law Sergi dancing Samba, tons of fun and very tiring on the legs!

After dancing, at about 11:00pm we walked the two blocks from Ernani's apartment to Copacabana Beach - what craziness! There will thousands of people on any given street and when we got to the beach, and were met by 4 million other people, well let me tell you - that was a sight I never thought I'd see! The Beach stretches for about 6km, so thankfully everyone had plenty of space to stand.


They had 4 live music stages, and screens set up all over the place. At 10 seconds to midnight they put the countdown up and everyone started screaming. At midnight all the lights on the beach went out and the fireworks started. 20 different boats set of 25 tons of fireworks for the first 20 minutes of the new year. it was an AMAZING sight. Everyone was cheering and happy, and colored by the sparkling fireworks in the sky. I couldn't have imagined what it would feel like to be surrounded by 4 million revelers, but it was really something out of this world.


Here is a picture of the crowd last night. If you look at the middle left of the photo, you will see a big white screen...we were about a hundred feet to the right of that - can you see us? ;)

We stayed on the beach until about 1:30am and then walked back to Ernani's apartment where we waited a bit longer for the crowds to clear out (although I'm not sure that actually happened - they seemed just as many when we left at 2:30am). By the end of the night we were wiped out, but happy.

Happy New Year to all - I wish you the best of happiness and health in 2011!