The Jetpacker

I’ll be honest… I had my doubts about spending New Year’s Eve in London.  It’s cold and drab in winter.  There’s always cloud cover (in every season).  The people are quiet.  The city is old-fashioned (which is code for occasionally boring).  Our holiday was destined to be uneventful.

But if you look at any New Year’s Top 10 list, London is always listed as one of the top places to visit.  So it had to be better than I expected.

We left our hotel around 9 p.m. with a simple yet well-conceived plan: follow the crowd.  A stream of people headed towards the Thames River, so we joined, not knowing where we’d end up.

A few minutes later we arrived at the Victoria Embankment, the walkway across from the London Eye, where there were already thousands of people — boisterous and intoxicated.

We picked a spot and sat down.  Then a bobby with a bullhorn yelled at us to stand back up.  The embarrassment of being publicly called out didn’t last long.  Apparently the same thing happened to our neighbors earlier, so we instantly became friends with them.  There was also a group of four young people from Brazil, as well as a husband and wife from northern England (and for some reason the wife really liked to talk about her Pagan background and brag about young men being attracted to her).

Interesting conversation made the wait fly by, even with achy, stiff legs.  The last 15 minutes of the year was a swell of excitement that continued to rise as my bladder continued to fill.  A giant countdown was projected on a building across the river, and with each passing second, the cheering got louder.

When the clock hit midnight and Big Ben chimed, the first fireworks shot off the London Eye and exploded into the surprisingly clear night sky.  The crowd erupted, hugged, kissed (some graphically), and high-fived.  But the cheers quickly faded.  And for good reason.  What followed for the next 10 minutes can only be described as…

The Best Fireworks Show We’ve Ever Seen

Every time we thought we had reached the grand finale, an even bigger and brighter display of noise and color blazed across the sky.  The fireworks came so fast and furiously, we couldn’t even take a breath.  Everyone stood in awe.  Maybe there were celebratory cheers, but the fireworks were so loud and intense, they were drowned out.

During the show, I actually feared for the safety of the London Eye.  I thought that thing was gonna crumble under the weight of the rumbling.  That’s how epic this fireworks show was.

But the oversized Ferris wheel survived.  And long after the show had ended, a buzz permeated the crowd.  Maybe the buzz was about where to go get buzzed.  But I’d like to think they were recounting the amazing scene they had just witnessed, like we were.

With major cities competing to put on the best New Year’s fireworks show, I can’t even imagine how epic next year’s display will be.

Since our time in London was limited, we didn’t go on an all-night bender to kick off the new year.  Instead, we waded out way through the crowd to get back to our hotel room, ordered some atrociously overpriced (but delicious) room service and went to bed.

The next morning, there was a New Year’s Day parade that passed directly outside of our hotel.  We didn’t stay to watch (it was nice, but it was no Rose Parade) since we were leaving London the following day and wanted to pack in as much tourism as possible.

If anyone ever has any reservations about visiting London for New Year’s, our only advice would be to absolutely visit.  There’s something for everyone’s tastes:  Big Ben chiming in the New Year, an absolutely amazing firework display, bars and thousands of partiers going all night, and a family-friendly parade touring the city the next day.