Happy People--Alternate Title: "I Hate Celebrations"--Alternate Alternate Title: "I Wish I Could be the Grinch of New Years and Steal All Their Stupid Firecrackers."

The Dutch are very into celebrating and they are especially into celebrating with firecrackers.  Football victories, football defeats, a concert, the weekend, a boring evening, all seem to be celebrated with firecrackers.  This week between Christmas and New Years has been especially packed with firecrackers---little, poppy ones, whistling screamers, and super loud ones that sound like World War III is just beginning.  Daylight and late nights seem equally unable to quell this enthusiasm.  As I write this, it is about 9pm and there have been firecrackers going off for at least the last 36 hours without pauses longer than 5 or 6 minutes at any point (and usually much less).  Occasionally, you can hear the glass in the windows shake.  Since the firecrackers are being set off in the middle of streets or in the small squares between apartment buildings, there is pretty significant echo amplification.  Periodically, large firecrackers will set off all of the nearby car alarms, although, the car alarms on my street have only been set off once so far.  Its hard to sleep well in what has to be a pretty near approximation of a war zone.  I am not amused and I do not feel celebratory.

This video fails to capture the loudness and loudness of whole thing--my ears are ringing.  Also, the video goes on a long time (about a minute)--if you watch the first 20 seconds (and then image that, way louder and lasting, I can only imagine, for three or four days) you will get the idea.