first night

walking around Boston from 3pm until 12:30am four giant ice sculptures a bmx stunt show a "skyriders" trampoline stunt show a magic show an anime film festival a real live parade (featuring, among other things, giant puppets, inflatable dinosaurs, & totally over-the-top costumes that used a lot of peacock feathers) decorations everywhere, on everything (notably: strung up between buildings with some kind of wire were light-up stars that, at night, looked like they were floating above the streets) japanese food noisemakers (you could hear them echoing all over the city, all night long & my younger siblings took full advantage of the horns my parents bought for them) two concerts (and free hot chocolate) in the Park Street Church next to the Boston Common the drum circle next to Quincy Market the fireworks over Boston Harbor at midnight (they were the best ones I've ever seen: in the shapes of stars and planets and all sorts of crazy things) the sea of people roaming all over the city all day and all night long (the newspaper this morning said there were probably about 1 million people in Boston for First Night) complete strangers wishing you a Happy New Year! very drunk people stumbling all over the streets talking about how they could get much drunker, because the night was still young