Fireworks From Slovakia

Bernie gets very creative about our outings, and last night came home and proposed an outing to nearby Lac Leamy, where there is an international fireworks competition for the summer. Not realizing the implications, I agreed...and enjoyed myself immensely but it was a little work to bring the evening off: I have never seen such crowds. The traffic getting there rivalled a lineup you would see for a rock concert or a playoff hockey game, and every parking lot within a couple of kilometres of the lake had volunteers directing traffic...and charging 8 bucks. Bernie carried a couple of chairs and not realizing we would have a walk, I was wearing flipflops, but we joined the crowds threading our way down the kilometre to buy tickets at 10 bucks each, wandered along with the other thousands through a sea of concessions ("It's like a fair, isn't it?", said my gallant date, wearing chairs on his head), ignored the smell of poutine and the lure of cappucino in what used to be the woods...and continued walking the paved path around the lake until we could find a small opening and sit down. One silhouetted tree slightly obscured my view but proved to be quite an addition to the artistic display.

At 9:15 loudspeakers provided some announcements from two local radio personalities (one French, one English, one female, one male, very pc), giving out thanks, kudos, door prizes, and a small introduction to the Slovakians. Around 9:40 we stood for the Slovakian national anthem and then: boom! We were launched into about twenty minutes of non-stop "feux d'artifice" starbursts, set to music. It was spectacular: the summer night sky, incessant pounding of the sound of fire over water, colours (a predominance of reds and greens, occasional blues, punctuated by dramatic gold, silvers, and star-like rockets in shimmering whites which I found the most beautiful), the rain of embers into the reflecting water, glow of the lake, a circling plane, a bright August moon, not quite full. We were quite entranced, a feeling enhanced by a collective "oohh" from the thousands around the lake after some of the more unusual displays, including a ground-level simulated silver waterfall cascade burning below rising rockets, and an almost phosphorescent finale.

I have suggested that Bernie goes early next Saturday and finds a key viewing point elsewhere in the city where he can park, avoid the crowds, pay no admission, and still see, and take the kids and cousin Audrey, all of whom would enjoy this...we had invited Jesse to join us, and I regretted that he had opted out, because I think it would have been lovely for him too. Less of a 'date' but at our age, a date is also pleasant with company!

It took a very long time to walk back to the van with the thousands streaming around us: one African couple caught my attention, the mother hand-in-hand with her child, who was about six, and the father carrying a baby of about two on his shoulder, where the sleepy one rode with his head drifting onto the pillow of his dad, unable to keep his eyes open even while riding. Quite a tender sight. In the parking lot the traffic was backed up forever, so we waited for almost an hour to be able to zip out onto the highway home and come in at eleven.

Stars in our eyes, real, and made in the fiery heavens.