Ringing in the New Year on Champs-Élysées

After we put the kids to bed, Glenda and I went for our New Year's celebration. No worry, my in-laws were asleep in our hotel suite with the kids.

We went to a cafe off Champs-Élysées for a quick drink and dessert before joining the crowd on the famous boulevard. Some restaurants on Champs-Élysées were charging an obscene amount of money for their (exquisite) Saint-Silvestre menu. For example, you can get a view of the crowd (and police in riot gear, and stores boarded up in preparation for the worst, and no view of the fireworks, while thousands of people peeping through the window to watch you enjoying your Saint-Silvestre feast) for merely 189€ per person here (and that's before drinks).

We were on Champs-Élysées, equidistant from Arc de Triomphe and the giant Ferris Wheel at Place de la Concorde. The police had cordoned off the boulevard as a pedestrian-only zone. There was not really a countdown, but we knew 00:00 hr came when the Brits around us were all cheering and dancing in a circle (just like how they would do it outside football stadiums around the globe, which you have all seen on TV). Older folks brought along bottles of champagne (and glasses), which were popped open by the time the Brits were dancing around the circle in opposite direction. Now, this is an alien concept for North Americans: drinking alcoholic beverages (without a brown bag covering the bottle) in public area!

There was supposed to be fireworks in Paris, but Glenda and I only saw glimpse of it from our vintage point. That didn't matter, as this was our first celebration sans kids for some years now.

Just as we were about to leave Champs-Élysées, the riot police got into action. Perhaps the barricade was not able to hold the raucous crowd outside the Louis Vuitton flagship store, or the boarded up Nike store? We don't know, as it was a good time to leave.

Bonne année!