The end of 2005

To see in the new year we went to Martijn's sister's place for the evening. We played weird Dutch games, lit our own fireworks (bought from a bike shop), roamed around the streets (setting of fireworks) and generally had a fun time.

Me playing some weird Dutch game. You have to push/slide/flick the wooden coin things down the plank into the appropriate number slot. I forget what they call this game.




After all the kissing of everyone 3 times on each cheek at midnight, everyone goes out onto the street and starts lighting their fireworks. We had a variety of fireworks. Some you light and then quickly throw away, others you set up in the middle of the road.

Our collection of used firework lined up on the road.


Martijn, Marco (Elina's husband), Elina (Martijn's sister) and Henk (Martijn's brother in-law) roaming the streets and setting/ dropping various noisy fireworks along the way.

Most of the night the air was thick with smoke and the sky was full of fireworks. It was actually a bit scary. The days leading up to NY eve, people would randomly light their fireworks. Officially you were only allowed to do the fire work thing between 10am (31/12) and 3am (1/1).

End of the night. All the streets were pink and red (not from the loss of any fingers) but all the left over bits and rubbish from the fireworks.