We started out the new year in 2013 with a trip to Berlin to celebrate at the Brandenburg Gate.  We had heard this was the biggest New Year celebration in the world, with about 1 million people crowding the area around the gate and we just had to be part of it.  Glad we did it but we can probably cross that event off our “bucket list”, at least for now.  We knew it would be crowded, drunken and noisy but, hey, that’s what New Year’s is all about, right?

The hardest part however was staying up late enough to drag our butts out of our nice warm hotel room and brave the cold to get down to the street leading to the gate, where all the action was.  This led us to ask ourselves, “Why do we need to wait until midnight to celebrate the new year?”  Unless we’re in Palau or somewhere like that, the new year will have already happened no matter where we are.  We’re all for celebrating it despite the fact that the outgoing year’s challenges will still be there on January 1st.  But we think we may celebrate the new year 2014 walking along a quiet beach somewhere as we toast our good fortune.