Happy New Year!

This New Years was the first time I celebrated away from Minnesota. I had heard a little about New Years Eve in Bologna from friends that had stayed over the Christmas holiday while I was studying abroad. I knew that if you were going to stay in Bologna you need to head into Piazza Maggiore for the festivities. As I believe in any Italian city- everyone congregates around the central meeting point which is the main piazza. 

We were invited to dinner at a friends house. We enjoyed a meal together and of course ate some lentils. In Italy they eat lentils at the New Years Eve dinner as a tradition, which is supposed to bring wealth for the new year. Supposedly the lentils look like money, little coins, and so the more you eat, the richer you'll be! 

Just 10 minutes before midnight we walked down to Piazza Maggiore. It was overflowing with people. It was a lively exciting atmosphere. There was a DJ who was playing dance music. It was incredible to see how a few songs can get a whole piazza dancing and singing. 

Bologna has a particular tradition of burning the "vecchione" (big old guy). Each year they build a large dummy which represents the year that is ending. At midnight they burn the dummy as a way of saying goodbye to old year and hoping that new year will be better than the last. 

So there was a huge black and white watering can with 2013 in big numbers across it. The piazza started counting down to midnight 5 minutes before and sure enough at midnight the watering can started to steam and smoke and all of a sudden it went up in flames. 

Fireworks were going off, lots of people had sparklers, and there were loads of illegal firecrackers and other paraphernalia being lit and going off. It was quite the scene. It almost felt like being in even a different country with crackers going off everywhere people shouting, yelling, dancing....

 So to everyone- Happy 2014! I hope this year only brings more joy, love, friendship, and good memories than the year before.