On Friday, we brought you the deliciousness that was New Year’s Eve dinner at Sonoma Grille, so tonight, it’s time to share the details of the party in the streets of Downtown Pittsburgh that followed.
After dinner, we walked around downtown, looking for some events to pop into. Snow was still falling all throughout the night, and the snowy weather that hit us in the end of December left our city feeling like a winter wonderland.
Our first stop was the O’Reilly theater, where we (stood in line for about an hour and) had an Angel Card reading. Well, I had an Angel Card reading, Michael just stood with me and waited. Angel Cards are used to help you find answers and insight for the future (always in a positive light, unlike other fortune cards, such as Tarot, which can present both positive and negative information). My reader had some good news for me: my angels say that 2013 is going to be the year I start to fully embrace my life’s purpose (the reader picked up on this, and then I happened to pull the Life’s Purpose card at random from the deck – it’s a sign!). In other words, watch out world, my book is finally going to make it off of my harddrive and into the hands of others!
While waiting in line to see a reader, we watched the annual parade out the window. The parade seemed a little smaller this year – the only marching band was Perry Traditional Academy (although their dance team and color guard are always the most fun anyway), and the parade kicked off with Pittsburgh Dad, who we almost missed. I guess I thought he would be on a float or in a car, but he was just walking in the street.
After the Angel Card reading, we stopped for a quick martini at our favorite downtown bar, August Henry’s, and then it was over to the August Wilson Center for a ballet performance. While your First Night button gets you into all the events for free, some events require vouchers to ensure seating, which is how we ended up with these nifty tickets.
Texture Contemporary Ballet was amazing! We don’t have any pictures, as photography was not allowed, but you can check out some of their videos on their website. They incorporated both traditional ballet choreography (and much of the performance was done en pointe) with more modern style. It was beautiful. One of the things I loved the best was the fact that every girl in the company had muscle. Texture is not full of dancers with the ‘traditional’ ballerina build, but there is something so incredible about watching a dancer with strong muscles that just adds to the overall beauty of the choreography. I will definitely be following this company on social media so I have an opportunity to see them again!
Unfortunately, the ballet got a bit of a late start because of the large crowd attending, so we ended up missing our next planned event (which was to check out Broken Fences at the WYEP studios – we’ll see them sometime this year!). It was already time to head down to the main stage for the final act of the night!
But before we ever made it to the stage, I noticed that the street vendors were selling my favorite thing in the world: VUVUZELAS! So yes. My New Year’s Eve would not be complete without a vuvuzela. Bonus: they were only $5 each! That left me enough cash to get a funnel cake from one of the food trucks!
It was a bit chilly and of course crowded down at the Dirty Dozen Brass Band’s performance, so we did a little bit of dancing, then popped into the pizza shop on the corner to refuel.
(Michael was pretty excited about his last pizza slice of 2012.)
And before we knew it, the ball was going up, and it was midnight! Happy New Year!!!
The fireworks between the buildings were fabulous (and a little terrifying) as usual.
And of course, I found plenty of opportunities to play my new vuvuzela to ring in 2013.
In fact, I like my new vuvuzela so much that we decided to make an Achievement out of it. So yeah. 2013 will be the year I find my life purpose, and the year I play the vuvuzela in 5 locations. I’m not saying those two are related but… you never know.
As usual, First Night was the perfect way to ring in the New Year, and starting off 2013 by already completing an Achievement on January 1 is a pretty good feeling! Here’s to a great year!