After the Mayor’s Thames Festival on Sunday September 11, 2011, I went over to watch the Fireworks finale on Waterloo Bridge with some of my friends. We got there about half an hour before they were supposed to start, however, it did not start at the time it was supposed to, and we waited there nearly for an hour. It was a cold night, but as I waited I took beautiful pictures of London from the bridge as I was waiting. London Eye was amazing as always with the tremendous colorful lighting effects that it has. The London skyline caught my eye as well, and the Big Ben never disappoints, day or night.
I was not able to attend the actual festival and it was a very cold night, so I was beginning to wonder if being out in the cold would be worth it. I have seen a fair share of fireworks back at home in the Bay Area, so they are not anything special to me. I even saw one this past summer at an Oakland Athletics baseball game from the field, and the fireworks were shot up just outside in the parking lot. My proximity to the fireworks that night made that experience very memorable to me.
This experience, although I was further away, definitely lived up to my expectations and I am glad I went. There were not any spectacular fireworks that I could point out (I saw a firework during Guy Fawkes night at Blackheath that was really cool, after the firework went off, the sparks from it would randomly dart around in the sky, I had never seen that before). The fireworks show itself was still worth seeing though, as it was very well done. Pains Fireworks (famous pyrotechnic experts) did an excellent job in putting on this show. The ending (where many fireworks pretty much went off simultaneously) was spectacular. However, the atmosphere was truly amazing. The fireworks were not on the side of the London Eye from the bridge, it was on the London skyline view side towards Blackfriars Bridge. The fireworks going up in the beautiful London view was breathtaking. It was as if the whole city of London became the perfect stage for these fireworks to go off. I had seen fireworks fro San Francisco before and they are very nice as well, but I preferred this one. The fact that I was on Waterloo Bridge and watching fireworks in the beautiful London scenery (where I could see so many London landmarks) really made it special for me. To be fair, I am not from here, so perhaps Londoners do not feel the same way about these fireworks. My cousins live here and they had no intentions to go and see these fireworks. In my opinion though, it does not get much better than fireworks over the scenic background that London provides.
The audience members were all gathered up along the two sides of the bridge and it was jam-packed; at one point, they stopped letting people on the bridge anymore because it was so full. One interesting observation that I saw were the passengers on double-decker buses going by on the bridge who were completely oblivious to the fireworks going off outside of their window. I thought that was a little odd. It was as if they see this on a daily basis going home from work. Unless that was true (which it isn’t), these people definitely missed out by not taking their eyes off the ground and looking out the window instead. The fireworks impressed everyone, I saw some people jaws dropped as many others just stood there with their loved ones enjoying this moment. For a moment, I had forgotten about the cold weather and was just enjoying this amazing spectacle. Two thumbs up London, I was just expecting some mediocre Fourth of July fireworks show but I was blown away by London’s tremendous fireworks extravaganza.
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