It often seems to me that one of the greatest wastes of film comes from efforts to capture awesome fireworks displays so, being the very bright, logical person that I am, I have chosen to finally update our blog with photos of incredible Christmas Eve fireworks that in the transition from memories and real life will likely bore everyone else to tears! At least Bonnie and I (along with our fellow spectators) will have the pleasure of reliving an experience that, for us, truly merited the full and literal definitions of the adjectives "unbelievable" and "incredible".
On Christmas Eve, after a little beach time with Aaron, Shannalee, Kit & Kayda (Akaydia), Hansen (from Idaho), Suzie Archer (from Tasmania, Australia),
Kristie (daughter), Chris Dawson (from Krypton), and Kaori (seven year-old granddaughter)
we had a little dinner at our apartment and then went to the Hansen's because we had heard there would be lots of fireworks on Christmas Eve and the Hansens have a corner apartment on the 11th floor (according to the USA method of counting floors) which not only has a great view of the beach and the skyline from the front, but also on the side overlooks the little plaza in front of our apartment. About 11:30 we went out on their balcony to watch what we considered an amazing display of fireworks. Here's all of us out on their balcony with the city skyline in the background.
Here is a shot of the city skyline behind us looking across the bay.
We were very impressed with the fireworks we were seeing...
And then at about five minutes before midnight we transitioned from "amazing" to "incredible" and "unbelievable".
It was, and still is, very difficult to accept the fact that all these fireworks were launched by individuals.
There were no organized fireworks displays. The government spent $0 on purchasing, organizing, securing, or whatever other costs are associated with public firework displays.
It reminded me of a city being mercilessly bombarded in a night scene of a war movie- only 100 times more impressive! .
Seemingly, there are no illegal fireworks in Uruguay. They are launched from roof tops, sidewalks, streets, or where ever anyone wants, including the plaza just below us. Here are a few photos of those that occasionally detonated in the air right beside us on the 12th floor balcony!
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Things that stood out to me:
It went on and on and on and finally began subsiding around 12:30 AM.
Since we were looking out to sea we were only privy to a very small portion of the city skyline. I cannot imagine what it must be like to be up high in the center of the city. I know, for a fact, I cannot imagine it because there was absolutely no way I could have ever imagined what we witnessed if I had not seen it for myself.
The sounds coming from all the ground level fireworks and the fireworks behind us which we could not see!
The car alarms that were going off!
The fireworks launched from the plaza beside us that exploded right beside, above, or below us- we felt like we were IN the fireworks. In fact, with the first unexpected and astonishingly close explosions, there was a small stampede towards the door back into the apartment (except Bonnie who simply hunkered down and peeked over the balcony wall). Of course, being enthralled with the view and the sounds we quickly put ourselves back into harms way. Luckily no one lost an eye or had their hair catch on fire!
The assessment of the elevator attendant (Hansen's apartment building, originally, was a posh hotel and still has elevators with attendants to run the controls that look like the circular speed-control lever on old ships (you know- Full Speed Ahead, All Stop, All Reverse, etc). Upon our departure we were attempting to express how impressive the fireworks had been to us and the attendant's response was simply, "Poco, muy poco, este año (small, very small, this year)," and he was dead serious. It seems the economic crisis has impacted the quantity of fireworks being detonated!
The observation of some life guards at the beach the following day that, for some unknown reason (to them), North Americans are usually overly impressed by the Christmas and New Year's Eve fireworks displays!
The assurances everyone gives us that the fireworks on my birthday (oh yeah, some people also celebrate New Year's Eve that night) are even more impressive! I'm going to hate to miss that, but we are celebrating New Year's Eve with our Uruguayan friends, Gerardo & Rosario and Jorge & Andrea who have rented a house at a beach outside the city. It is summer vacation time here (school is out) and, by law, everyone gets a minimum of three weeks of vacation. Although Bonnie is supposed to have the entire month of January off, she does have to attend a conference and make a presentation in Costa Rica the last week of January so she only gets the minimum three-week vacation!
Anyway, we will make sure we purchase some fireworks of our own to take with us and I expect we will still see quite a show from everyone else who is in the vicinity of where ever we will be!
OK, so now we have added our testaments to the facts that film and small screens cannot do justice to fireworks, a tripod should always be used for night pictures, photos always make things look so much farther away than they are in real life, and you will never believe how close we were to the close up fireworks (no zoom function was used)!
That's a "wrap" for now. Merry Christmas to all and 
to all a good night!
If you are a glutton for punishment check out Kristie's video clips of the fireworks at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6d_XNfU6mJE (the close up detonations occur at 6:00 and 8:30 minutes)
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qzo79og6nhw (the close up detonations occur at 0:00 3:15, 4:20 [1], 5:30, and 7:30 minutes)
I especially like the recorded comments and the sounds of the ambulances in the background!
