The Rockets Red Glare...

Last night we found out exactly what Georgian's mean when they say that New Year's is their biggest holiday of the year. They don't celebrate Christmas on December 25 and the Orthodox Christmas on 7 January retains the religious celebration and avoids the commercialism that the US holiday has. So New Year's is the big one. Keep in mind that this is a society who's sober non-drinkers would give American alcoholics a run for their money.

So last night, Meg & I went to a friends house for a low key night in and to avoid the alleged celebratory gun fire that may be a risk downtown. What we got was quite a show. Tbilisi doesn't exactly have a municipal fireworks show, but the denizens put on a show that beats most fire departments. There were huge volumes of roman candles, bottle rockets, M-80s and all sorts of other stuff. The volume of explosive material going off almost made it sound like we were in a war zone.

We had people launching roman candles horizontally from their tenth story apartments at other buildings, neighbors throwing firecrackers into the backyard, and the sounds of AK47 and pistol fire going off throughout the area.

Also, as we write this, Meg finally realized that it's now 2008. It only took her 16 hours... she's a pretty smart kid. :)