Circular Quay 2010..

The best way to enjoy New Year's Eve is to expect to be miserable. That way, if you get home without anyone throwing up on you you're pleasantly surprised.

Take last year as an example. The bar I went to was nearly empty, yet a waitress somehow managed to dump an entire tray of drinks on my new shirt and a drunken cowboy wanted to fight me because his girlfriend kept brushing my leg. Was I bummed? No. At least the cowboy wasn't armed.

So it was with this attitude that my brother, Eric, and I took a bus and then a train into Sydney, staked out a viewing position at Circular Quay near Sydney Opera House, and sat for over six hours on hard stone with 1.6 million other people until the fireworks began at midnight. The garbage bins overflowed by 9 p.m. and there was a half-hour queue for the toilets. But the show was pretty good, and the sick girl on the train waited until she was up the stairs and out of the station before she spewed. All in all, not a bad night.

I don't want to imply that I've never had a good New Year's Eve. I had one once that went so well I was nearly kicked out of a bar for lewd behaviour. There was another where Eric and I went to a party and a friend taught us to juggle. We practiced until dawn before we finally could do it. (Eric still can!)

One of my funniest New Year's memories happened about ten years ago when Eric arrived at a party shortly before I did. He told guests who didn't know me to pretend that they did, and he gave them some details about me so they could pull it off. When I got there, I just assumed I couldn't remember these people and -- because I didn't want them to feel insulted -- faked that I knew them. I didn't learn it was a prank until Eric told me in the taxi on the way home.

I didn't pick up any new skills like juggling while celebrating the arrival of 2010, but at least there were no drunk cowboys. And Sydney will remain significant for me because, by virtue of being the first world city to celebrate New Year's each year, its fireworks always make international TV newscasts. That means wherever I am next year, and every year after, I'll be able to say I was at Circular Quay back in 2010.