Happy New Year!

Last night Kevin and I got to watch Rome explode. Quite a sight. (& clearly we've lived to tell about it . . . )

We took the train into the city to spend New Year's at the newly-acquired apartment of one of Kevin's roommates from last year - Davide. He has a nice spot just northeast of the Vatican - you can see the top of the spire of St. Peter's, but the rest of the basilica is obscured by buildings.

Just before midnight, the group of us that had landed around his table trooped up to the roof, from which we could see almost all of Rome across the horizon - buildings to the right and roofs to the left, but a clear view straight ahead. And fireworks were going up quite literally all over the place.

In Michigan, all fireworks that explode while airborne are prohibited for private displays; in Kansas, they are difficult to obtain and can't be blown up in city limits. In Rome, they're legal to everyone, easy to come by, and have no restrictions placed on where they can be set off, so the city goes bombs-bursting-in-air wild come New Year's midnight.

Kevin picked up a few for our own last night's immediate entertainment. Having been a designated fireworks-purchaser while with the Norbertines, he knows the best spots in Rome to get them, and picked up last night's at a hole-in-the-wall in Trastevere that sells fireworks, cat food, and crossbows. Yes, you read that list correctly. An obvious combination, hm?

In any case, we had quite a bit of fun, welcomed 2008 in with a bang, and got to bed well before the ball dropped in Times Square.