I just finished watching a fireworks display in the harbor.  This is the third I have been able to see from my apartment window since I moved here.  Keep in mind, I’ve lived here one month.  The first display was during a music festival in Darling Harbor, so it all made sense once I figured it out.  The second was inexplicably short and surreptitious hidden behind the buildings in the CBD.  Nonetheless it was large and, therefore, most likely legitimate.

I have no idea why this one happened either, but it was loud, colorful, sparkly and spectacular.  The Sydney Ferries continued their timely service, although traveling  practically underneath the embers.  And the bats flew calmly through the night air, seemingly undisturbed.  I listened for applause after the booming stopped, and heard none.  I looked at the walkways along the harbor through my binoculars, and saw no usually large crowd.  And I just did a quick google search, and saw no mention of fireworks for today’s date.  Apparently this is how we celebrate Thursday.

As I watched the display, wondering if a local fireworks maker had just had one massive going out of business sale, I remembered another time in my life when I suffered for a similar feeling of “will someone please explain”.  I was studying in Florence at the time.  My friends and I were walking the familiar route home from one of our favorite bars, when we encountered a massive group of people walking the opposite direction.  They were carrying torches,  waving signs and being lead by a line of drummers in colorful outfits.  We stepped aside into a narrow side street watching, perplexed, as the group filed past like the Pamplona bulls.  Fueled by curiosity and rum shots, we decided to follow them.

We hopped behind them, trying to read the signs, and despite several of us being pretty good with Italian (a skill that I have long since lost touch with) we couldn’t make out the cryptic messages.  Eventually the crowd flowed into the Piazza Della Signoria where the drummers, a few torch bearers, and one angry looking fellow, filed up onto the steps of the Palazzo Vecchio, and took position next to David.  There had already been at least one union strike while we were living there, so we prepared for this to be another angry group waiting to have their say.

The speech went on for a few minutes, a few loud boisterous cheers were shared across the piazza, and the drummers egged them on a few times before we put it all together.  It was a soccer rally.  Fiorentina had lost a major match, and their fans were gathering in a show of solidarity.  Their team may had lost, but their fan’s spirits had not been crushed.  They were loudly declaring their support and already claiming a victory for next season.  And as we watched the speech I could tell we were all thinking the same thing; If this is what the Florentines do when Fiorentina loses, what happens when they win?

So if Sydneysiders use fireworks on every occasion of note, and even those not so notable, even in the middle of the week, even in the middle of winter, then how crazy do they go on New Years Eve?