Where Were You When We Partied Like It Was 1999?

As I sit trying to decide what to do tonight to celebrate New Years Eve this year my mind wanders back over the years and I try to remember where I was each NYE.  I don't know why we make such a big deal out of this one day of the year but personally I love the holiday and enjoy being new places to celebrate it.

Last year I celebrated it in typical party fashion at Fashion Institute Gallery's shindig in Dallas.  NYE 2009 was spent celebrating the wedding weekend of my friends Meg and Cheerio.  As the years pass, the memories grow blurrier and I can't remember specifically where I was and who I was with on each and every holiday, but I do know that each year was started off right spending time with good friends.  However, there are some years that stand out as more memorable.  NYE 2008 was spent with a good friend in Cleveland, Ohio; it was definitely a true wintry New Years celebration, snow and all.  And I ended 2006 in Basel, Switzerland watching fireworks over the Rhine with another longtime friend.  Years before that I rang in 2001 watching fireworks over the harbor bridge at the arboretum in Sydney, Australia.  And of course, there's the year that no one can forget: NYE 1999, the Millennial New Year.

In 1999 I was 19 years old and in my second year at a small Texas college.  I remember the hoopla surrounding the millennial new year celebration and the fear that it inspired in the armageddonists.  Will the Y2K bug revert the world's computers to 1900 and effectively stop commerce, business, and life itself?  Some people stockpiled supplies in fear of the end times as the world prepared to usher in the new millennium. I, on the other hand, was ready to party it up just in case there was no tomorrow. As part of the liberal arts college experience at this particular school, students are required to take three Jan Term courses (otherwise known as the best class ever) during the course of their studies.  These classes were to have nothing to do with your major and while they offered some on campus options, who wants to spend a month in Sherman, TX when you could be somewhere exotic and exciting instead?  So my junmore year (I graduated a year early so my sophomore and junior years were rolled up into one) I decided that I wanted to knock another continent off my list study the globalization of eastern Asia so I signed up to go to Japan, Korea, and China for Jan Term.  So that is how I was able to spend NYE 1999 ringing in the new year in Tokyo, Japan.  As fun as I remember it was, the evening really didn't entail much; we got dressed up in our best going out clothes and danced the night away at Roppongi's nightclubs after jumping up and down trying to be seen on CNN's live broadcast in Shibuya's Time Square. We were a classy bunch.   Where were you for the big ball drop in 1999?  Do you try to do something special for NYE or is it just another night?  What is your favorite NYE memory? Happy New Year, y'all!  I hope that all of my friends near and far have a wonderful end to 2011 and wish you all the very best for 2012.