New Year's Eve

For a video of the whole show check out: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16374722

Lots of people!  I showed up at 6pm for a good spot.  When the show ended it took me about two hours to walk 2.5 miles home with all the people.  Granted I didn't know exactly where I was going so I may have taken a detour to Piccadilly Circus and then to Oxford Street instead of taking this route: http://g.co/maps/ahkek

Although it may not have worked out with the barricades... who knows.  So I just followed the BT Tower and ended up doing this: http://g.co/maps/8jj6w

When it started raining everyone whipped out their umbrellas.  It only rained for a bit and was more of a drizzle.  As the night went on it did get pretty chilly though.  (This also shows how wide the street was.  Now imagine this all along the Thames river, the bridges, and Parliament Square--that's how many people showed up!  It was at maximum capacity by about 11pm).

Giant speakers were hung up and down the streets to play music and make announcements.

Big Ben

 18 seconds to midnight!  (in case you didn't notice the large 18 on the building)

Tested out the panorama feature on my camera... didn't work out so well but maybe once I practice a bit more with it.

  

The show lasted about 11 minutes and was amazing!  This is also a rare opportunity to see the London Eye change colors!  Most of the time it's blue although Brendan and I have seen it change colors a few times but on New Year's Eve it was changing colors every few seconds starting around 10pm.  My favorite was this yellowy orange color!

I made friends with an engineer from Bulgaria, two women from New Zealand, an English woman, and a few Indians as well.

Sometimes the fireworks made so much smoke the London Eye couldn't be seen.

ooo ahhh

 Fireworks shot out of the London Eye and Big Ben as well!  The fireworks in the right bottom corner are coming from the barge that was right in front of me--best seats ever!

Happy New Year's!  Have a good 2012 :)