Revering The New Year In Cool Austria

Although old family traditions would make it mandatory for anyone in our clan to spend New Year's Eve at home, I was in Vienna with some of my friends who bound with me in welcoming 2007. It was a very different experience for me; at one point, I was sorrowful because I was away from my family, and at another point exciting because I was able to see how a universal event like New Year's Eve is celebrated in a localized manner in a place like Austria.

Anyway, my stay in Austria proved to be certainly extraordinary. First of all, the Austrians call their New Year's Eve "Silvester," after Pope Silverster I of the 4th century whose divine feast day is revered in Austria every December 31st. In the last Silvester, the Inner City of Vienna became one gargantuan and herded ground zero of festivity. There were over 80 stands that distributed drinks like champagne and plenty of foods. Party fever flooded the whole Vienna: from the City Hall up to the gargantuan Prater ferris wheel. My friends and I took the streets to participate in plenty of discos, concerts, clubs, operattas, and other extravagant events that were being held. Good thing I did not lose myself in the middle of the turbulent Vienna despite the thick crowd, ear-piercing music, and free beers.