The explosions started on the 28th and I think we only heard one or two today, so I feel like it’s over. The first ones on “Old Year’s day” started around 10. 10am. That’s right. Nearby and faraway, all over town, firecrackers, and later fireworks, fusing. For 4 days straight. Explosions in the street, crackling fires of old furniture, broken down bikes and dried out Christmas trees, shouts of joy, peals of laughter, car alarms, emergency sirens – to no one’s surprise.
The smells mingled oddly. Sulfur from spent fireworks, grease then delicious fried dough and sugar from the oliebollen carts scattered on every square, and through it all or enveloping it, the distinct smell of cool misty air that seems a bit too thick and too wet to breathe.
But the sights you ask? Not much to be honest. Until. Until the year was spent. And then – only then, magic. The sky lit up in all directions. You couldn’t turn and not see flashes. Gold and silver, red and green, purple and blue, bursting, twinkling, falling away. Starting back up, over and over, a minute, then two, then ten and twenty, for an hour, unstopping and another then fading, slowly into the now dark again night.
The New Year came in, with a bang. I hope it finds you well.
Love,
Belligerence and Chocolate.
Belligerence & Chocolate 