1 Jan 2008

NEW YEAR REPORT AND THOUGHTS

Yesterday evening we waited for the new year to start. We wanted to go to the 20 min farer located Brussels and watch the annual New Year's firework. There is always a lot of fun in the center of the city.

People from whole Belgium and a lot of tourists who especially come for this event are gathered in the parc just in front of the king's palace or on the Grand'Place. Usually they also bring their Champagne with them to empty the bottle at midnight while watching the firework.

Despite the politicians who want the whole world to believe that flemish and french speaking people don't like each other, because they are fighting, this event proves the contrary. Besides some fanatics on both sides nobody thinks about a separation between the flemish and the french speaking part amongst the population.

This year the firework had been cancelled. For the first time in Belgium's history there was a terrorist alert in Brussels and the government had decided to cancel the firework. This made people very angry and they even accused the government to have cancelled the firework on purpose so that flemish and french speaking people couldn't meet. This of course is ridiculous.




a lot of little things to eat ! From sushis over salmon and other snacks to little cheese balls filled with figs or salmon and as dessert a Tiramisu.

So we stayed home and watched the musical "Chicago" and some other shows on TV and enjoyed our little specialities.

At midnight fireworks started in our street and all around in Waterloo. People had spent a fortune to make their private firework in their gardens or somewhere else outside. It was a beautiful show and everybody screamed "Bonne Année"

My poor cats didn't appreciate these noises at all, cat Arthur disappeared in my wardrobe and the others under different beds. They only showed up when it was over.

This morning then I thought about something I had never really thought about. Not all of my blogfriends celebrate the New Year at the same time ! There is sometimes a big time difference.
So I looked it up this morning.



For me it was 6 am and for most of the European countries too except my friends in the UK who maybe still celebrated because for them it was 5 am.

For those living in Vietnam they probably started their New Year's lunch it was 12 pm and in Singapore it was already 2 pm on January 1sth 2008.

My friends in Australia were maybe laying at the beach at 4 pm and in South Africa they probably started to eat their supper at 7 pm. In Brasil they enjoyed some tea or coffee now at 3 pm. For them the new year had already started a few hours ago.

But there are my American friends who still have to wait for midnight to come and there it varies too, in New York it is just midnight and everybody says cheers to the New Year, while in Los Angeles it is only 9 pm and they have to wait for a couple of hours.

So we Bloggers don't welcome the New Year all at the same time. It is strange but I really never payed attention to this fact.

But now it is the New Year for all of my Blogfriends and I wish a


to all of them !!


Bush...I'm not high! | Funny Jokes at JibJab

and this I found this morning and it made me laugh so please laugh too !

20 comments:

  1. Hahaha, hilarious video!! I don't drink alcohol, so I'm fesh as a daisy most of the time! ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Gattina ~ ~ I guess we are all in 2008 by now and let us hope it is a good year for us all. The time changes are interesting aren't they as well as the seasons. I am sweltering here about 40C, about 100F and it is Winter in the Northern Hemisphere. Thank you for your comments and Christmas wishes etc. Glad you went to see your son in Amsterdam and sorry it is so depressing in Winter. My son-in-law came from The Netherlands when he was a young man. He & my daughter Kathy have a dairy farm and 5 kids from 9 to 20. The eldest two have left home, Kate to train as a chef
    and do Uni. studies, and Joh is 18 and a half has joined the Army.
    Take care, and a Happy New Year. Love, Merle.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The video is very funny. Some days I think GWB is all that stupid.

    I am surprised you just figured out that New Year's Eve is a moveable feast around the world. You can blame the Canadian Sir Sanford Fleming for that. He was the first to suggest the World should be divided into 24 time zones.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi! and Happy New Year! We are on the 1st of Jan and its 2008 already! That was sad for all of you not to be able to see your beautiful fireworks but I guess it was the best your government could do to keep everyone secured.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Happy New Year, Gattina! Shame about the fireworks though!

    What about those on the space station? They passed over 16 different time zones to bring in the New Year. Good job they are only able to drink water or they may have found themselves in a different solar system this morning!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Happy New Year to you and yours.
    Thanks for visiting even when I'm not on my broom blogging.

    ReplyDelete
  7. j'ai fait une bonne sieste cet après-midi! ça va beaucoup mieux!
    vous avez dû vous régaler! tout est si appétissant! ce matin j'ai lu dans les actualités surinternet que les 400 000 personnes qui étaient venues spécialement sur les Champs Elysées à Paris étaient vraiment déçues car elles s'attendaient à un feu d'artifice cette année vu que Sarko crie à qui veut l'entendre qu'avec lui c'est mieux! et bien non! pas de feu d'artifice à Paris non plus!
    ha! ha ! thanks for the video!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hi Gattina! Thanks for the message... Fancy cancelling the fireworks: what on earth can that achieve? Did they think they had been swapped for bombs? I don't get it... also when you do something like that you let the terrorists win as that's their aim. Not just to kill but to frighten people and disrupt their lives as badly as possible.
    Talking of Francais/Vlaams I heard about that girl who won the Beauty Contest in Antwerp - o the scandal that she didn't speak Dutch!! It even made BBC World Service news!!
    They did have fireworks here in London though I didn't find out about them till afterwards. If I'd have known I'd have come down as transport on New Year's Eve is usually free, sponsored by Nicotinell Gum and Patches!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Funny that last night I thought of the fact that when the ball dropped in New York New Years would be long gone for some of my Blog friends or wasn't even close! You and Mr. G sure did have a nice looking spread, yum!

    Happy New Year!

    ReplyDelete
  10. We stayed at home too. We ate some foods and had a little wine. I fell asleep before midnight as usual. Your foods look soo good!! The video is hilarious! I love South Park! :D

    Happy New Year!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Bonne Année, Gattina! Wir wünschen Dir und Deiner Familie von Herzen ein Frohes Neues Jahr ♥

    Sollte von dem Tirami Su noch etwas übrig sein... *g* gerne auch in Kombination mit allem anderen... Schwanger macht nach wie vor fresslustig =)

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hey, too bad about the fireworks but your snacks looked good!
    Happy New Year to you and your cats too!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Gattina! This was a SWEET post! I can't believe you started out the new year on a less than sarcastic note! LOL! Is this a New Year's resolution? (boy, i hope not!) LOL! It is strange that the world does not celebrate the New Year all at once ... but then ... we don't do ANYTHING all at once! I really don't spend much time contemplating this though. It looks like you and Mr. Gattino had a LOVELY celebration - just the two of you! I went over to Amanda's house and celebrated with she and Mathew and Luz. Poor Hector had to work though! Carol was there - and her mom was visiting from Georgia so she was there too. We had a good time. Dennis stayed home with Mom though... he's not much on late night celebrations.... *sigh* And sO another year comes in! Mine is going to have a bit a bumpy beginning... but I'll be posting about THAT in a few days! Stay tuned!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Oh jeeeeeez! I totally forgot!
    HAPPPPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  15. And those of us in Hawaii, in the middle of the Pacific ocean, are some of the last to see the New Year come. Our time zone is GMT minus 10!

    Hope Arthur has recovered from his shock and come out of your wardrobe by now!

    ReplyDelete
  16. I loved the 2000 celebration on TV because they followed the New Year from place to place - it was so amazing.

    Thank you for the reminder!!

    ReplyDelete
  17. I'm sorry your celebration got cancelled. But your tablefull of treats looked really good. I'm glad to hear you had a good time. Gretchen got flustered over the all the loud noises at midnight here. She headed for under the bed.

    And Happy New Year to you, too.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Happy hilarious new year, I hope 2008 will be filled with a lot of laughters like that :-))))

    Yes, it's a bit complicated sometimes with the cyber cruise too, especially when we're having a cruise party!!!!

    I've added my timezone to the sidebar yesterday so people can se what the time is at the Lifecruiser ship :-)

    ReplyDelete

Dear Anonymous,
Please do not be shy and leave your name, otherwise you will end up in the bin !