Nochevieja

31 Dec 2011

For New Year's this year, I wanted to participate in one of Spain's most traditional New Year's Eve celebrations. For that, I flew from Alicante to Madrid.

Every year, people gather in the Plaza de Sol for New Year's Eve. There, at the stroke of midnight, everyone eats 12 grapes--one for each ringing of the bell. Each grape that you eat brings you a month's good luck in the new year!

I left Alicante late this afternoon and arrived in Madrid by 5:00. The metro was ALREADY packed with people--some heading to Sol and others to their own New Year's parties. One thing I did notice was the amount of ridiculous wigs. It seemed that most people were wearing neon colored wigs.

Why? I'm not really sure. I guess this tradition is particular to Madrid because they definitely don't do it in Alicante!

Once in Madrid, we met up with friends and had the most amazing dinner before we made our way to the Plaza de Sol in order to ensure that we had a good spot!

Police were in full force at various check points around the plaza--confiscating all glass containers.

Then, we only had about two hours to kill. Let me just say that two hours is a long time to wait!

Especially, when you decide that you can wait until after midnight to use the restroom. With a whole hour to spare, a few of us thought that we would be able to make it back in time for midnight.

Which was completely reasonable.

Unfortunately, when we got back to the Plaza de Sol, we couldn't find our friends in the crowd. And, there is no doubt in my mind that we probably passed by them and didn't see them.

No grapes. No good luck for the New Year.

However, I have every hope that 2012 will be just as great as 2011!