Let me start by saying this…I hate NYE.  There is nothing worse, in my opinion, than getting all dressed up in the freezing cold weather and having to wait forever for a cab at the end of the night when all you want to do is go home.  It’s so expensive and never worth the hype, in my opinion.  That being said, spending NYE at a beach house near Perth completely changes how I feel about the holiday and it quickly rises to the top of my list.

My last sunset of 2014

Our friend’s family has a beach house in Mandurah, about an hour from Perth.  We drove there on the morning of the 31st and spent the day there hanging out, drinking, and playing games.  Due to the strong Western Australia winds that come up in the afternoon, we had to abort our idea sitting on the beach outside the morning hours.  It didn’t even matter, though, because we sat up at the house and stared out at the ocean and beach without having to get all sandy.  Really, it was a win-win for everyone (except the husband, who spent over an hour blowing up Frannie, our inflatable flamingo, only to never have anyone use her).  I can’t begin to explain how beautiful the beach and water was, and my crappy iPhone photos don’t begin to do it justice.

The husband and I enjoying the view

Cricket is a huge sport in Australia, about which none of the Americans knew anything prior to arriving in Australia.  Having just learned what a wicket was and a very rough idea of the rules, we played a backyard cricket game in the front yard of the house (front yard cricket, if you will).  I was pretty terrible and kept forgetting to hold on to the bat, which you need to keep after you hit the ball, unlike in baseball.  Once you hit it, you run across the pitch and have to cross a line and then run back to where you started to score a run.  Only your bat has to cross the line, so holding onto the bat and reaching it over the line is a good idea that I couldn’t seem to master.  I did, however, manage to hit it into the brush across the street once.  I then had to run back and forth across the pitch for so long that my super-out-of-shape self had to just quit running and stop scoring points.

“Playing” Cricket

After cricket, we all got cleaned up and ready for the festivities.  By festivities, I mean an amazing dinner prepared by our friend, who is an amazing cook, games on the patio, and champagne.  We played Balderdash until it neared midnight and then headed out towards the beach to light sparklers.

Note: be careful when lighting sparklers in super-dry Western Australia during the summer.  We literally almost burned down all of Mandurah in doing so.  The best man accidentally threw a sparkler that was still lit into the brush, adjacent to the road.  The brush immediately lit up as though we had poured gasoline and a match on it.  He quickly threw his glass of alcohol on the flames in an attempt to put out the fire.  This is not recommended.  Have you ever seen Bananas Foster made table-side? If not, let me explain.  They take the dessert containing bananas and ice cream, pour alcohol on it, and light it on fire (the alcohol is used as the accelerant for the fire). Alcohol is highly flammable, and alcohol + dry brush = disaster. Shockingly, pouring his drink onto the flames only made things worse.  He quickly used his shirt (and maybe his bare hands, we still aren’t sure?) to stamp out the flames.  It’s still unclear how he didn’t end in the hospital with third degree burns, but he didn’t, and we were able to get a bucket of non-flammable water to pour over the ashes to make sure that nothing re-kindled itself overnight.  Disaster averted, we headed back inside to continue to NYE celebrations.  After a brief episode of thinking that one of our friends very likely had a DVT due to a very swollen and painful leg after a 15 hour plane ride, we were off to bed.

Goodbye 2014, Hello 2015

It was my first time celebrating NYE outside the US, and it was only 10am in the US when we rang in the New Year in Western Australia.  It was a bit strange not watching the ball drop in Times Square on the TV and not counting down the seconds to the New Year, but I can’t say that I missed it.  It actually felt very much like the 4th of July celebrations back home, given the warm weather, sparklers, and general lack of all things winter.  Prior to this, I had never considered how much weather affects how we celebrate holidays.  I always associate NYE with freezing cold weather and snow, and thus, have never really like the holiday.  It really doesn’t need to be like that, I just need to move to Perth (hint, hint, husband).  I hope that everyone had equally lovely and disaster free NYE celebrations!  2015 has been a great year so far.