While it's very difficult to live up to the fantastic fireworks display Sydney puts on every year, they made a pretty good attempt for my first NYE here in Zürich. It certainly beat the NYE I spent in Dublin 2 years ago where there was no public event at all.
The city put on an evening of (bad 80's) music with food and drink stalls around the river and lake shore. The warm Glühwein was very welcome on the cold night and there was plenty of warming, traditional winter foods to enjoy.
For reasons unknown, the fireworks show on the lake started at 00:20. Some guess it was to let people enjoy their own New Year celebration before the show started, but I think I much prefer the Sydney way of starting the new year with a bang.
Once the show began, we were treated to an impressive, 20 minute long display, although it generally seemed a little slow. There were some flurries of explosive goodness and a couple of spectacular "rain of fire" moments where the sky was filled with slowly falling sparkles of fire, but in all, the Sydney show is an unchallengeable winner. I'll have to consider going home again for 2010/2011.
Here is a video of the first 10mins of the fireworks, watch in HD mode (720p) for the best detail. I ran out of memory halfway through, so the second 10mins will be up to your imagination. It did get a bit faster and more interesting, so sorry for missing it. Enjoy!
