Family Visit To Munich, Day Three, New Year's Eve

As it was getting near dinner time, we decided to check out the Tollwood Festival, a well known, New Year’s Eve celebration sight. When we arrived at the grounds, it looked like a lot of fun with live bands, shows, bonfires, and fireworks. However, we all decided to get something for supper instead of going in. We headed back towards the Marienplatz, and checked out the Hard Rock Café Munich, but it was only serving drinks for the evening. We found the same thing at a handful of restaurants, before we ended up back at the Hofbräuhaus. We tried to get a seat downstairs, but the Hofbräuhaus was packed beyond belief. I have never seen so many people. So, we tried the upstairs again. Luckily, most seats required reservations for the special night, but we got one of the last open tables available. They even had live music and dancing in the next room over, so it was a great atmosphere. Plus, we got to have the famous one liter beers again! The roast pork salad for dinner was excellent, and we topped it all off with vanilla apple strudel.
After dinner, we decided to go back to the Marienplatz for the fireworks at midnight. As soon as we got there, the place was crazy….almost out of control. We squeezed our way into the crowd, and watched the commotion for about an hour. I have never seen so many fireworks in my life. People were so packed into the square that you could not even move. Everyone was shooting off their own fireworks by holding them over their head, and others were down the street shooting them out off beer bottles. The fireworks were everywhere, bouncing off of buildings, off of the Glockenspiel, off of people. It was amazing to see, but seemed to be getting pretty dangerous by the time we left. We headed back to the hotel after a great New Year’s Eve, where we could hear fireworks going all the way up until first light the next morning.