It's The Final Countdown... minus big hair

Times Square. New York City, Manhattan. New Year's Eve. The final countdown to farewell 2005. The start of 2006 is nigh. Watch the ball drop to ring in the new year.

Watch the ball drop to ring in the new year. Remember that.

I head out to Times Square and am there by 12.30pm. I have about 11.5 hours to kill before I celebrate with a million of my closest friends - and I do mean 'closest' quite literally. I bag a spot right by the stage around 42nd Street. I become best buddies with a Colombian nanny who works in Queens. Luckily, she is no Fran Drescher. We're surrounded by a bunch of South Carolina folk. One of them is a surly fat girl with tacky pink glasses which make out the shape of '2006' - the frames are made from '00'.

I am feeling good, feeling great.

3 hours later, the cops tell us they're shutting off this block. Did I mention that we've all been sitting here for 3 hours already? A few thousand of us are shunted down the road, evicted like squatters on someone's stoop.

No matter, there's always a silver lining somewhere. I plant myself in front of Mickey D's, which is on the opposite side of the street to my original spot. I'm on my own now. The Colombian nanny has disappeared. It has snowed and rained in the 3 hours I have been camped out in Times Square. Oh joy. I seriously need a toilet break and food. Living on a pastry for the whole day and being dehydrated is not how I want to spend New Year's Eve in 'the world's greatest city'. I join the 30 minute congo line for the loos at McDonald's, then go in search for 'wholesome food' in Times Square. It's like finding a needle in a haystack. Or a street without a homeless bum.

By the time I return, the police have blocked off the area into 'pens'. I can no longer get back to the area I was initially at. I mill around and try to get as close as possible to the city centre for the next 1.5 hours. The nearest I can get is 49th Street. I am deeply peved off.

The cops open up the pen, and the crowd surges forwards. I shift down a block. There is a large crowd of merrymakers already gathered, but it's not too crazy as yet. Of course, it is only 5pm. 7 more horus of standing in the cold and wet. I shimmy my way over to a barricade and am subsequently surrounded by people who don't speak any English and who smoke like chimneys. It is a sign to move on. And none of them looks like snogging material. There is an okay-looking fellow, but I don't think his girlfriend would appreciate a complete stranger planting a big wet one on him.

Shimmy some more. The closest I get is 48th and 7th Avenue. I tell off some ugly red-headed moron from some European country en route to my final destination.

Christina: Excuse me, I'm just going to squeeze through.

Ugly Guy 1: You want to pass through?

Christina: Yes.

Ugly Guy 1: Okay. Pass through. (sarcastic tone - he and Ugly Guy 2 purposely stand side-by-side so I cannot pass).

Christina (raises voice and does 'teacher impersonation'): If you're not going to let people stand in that space, then at least let them pass through. (points accusingly to the circle he and his ugly friends have made and will not let anyone occupy, then gives them a very serious "I Want To Kill You" glare).

Ugly Guy 1: Oh. Okay. (not sure how to respond to the 4'11 midget telling him off).

He and his friends part like the red(head) sea.

Ugly Guy 2: Oh, we'll let you pass since you're so small. (let's out stupid laugh, delayed reaction).

Christina: (thought bubble appears over her head) Dumbass.

I refrain from "And you're ugly" remark. I am much more dignified than that. Besides, 1 of me. 7 of them ugly mugs.

As usual, I snake my way to a good lookout spot. I am perched on a barricade with an excellent view of the proceedings. Big neon signs and a clear view of the ball that drops in Times Square to mark the end of an old year, and the start of a new one. I make friends with two ladies around me. One is a 30 something psychiatric nurse from Yuma and a 63 year old trendsetter with a penchant for fully intact weasels wrapped around her neck that once had Clint Eastwood even paying compliments. The two feed me chocolate truffles and keep me entertained... for the next 6 hours.

One has not truly experienced 'cold' until one has sat on a metal pole for 360 minutes, and frozen their derriere off in sub-zero weather. But I brave the cold... just so I can see that ball drop at the stroke of midnight.

Every hour in the final few hours, fireworks go off from the top of the Renaissance Hotel and confetti shoots out. Some idiot throws toilet paper from the roof at one point. We watch and laugh as it floats down. It is stained brown. We're glad it falls on the crowd on the opposite side of the road.

The night goes off. I am getting wet, cold, numb and tired, but my spirits are high. I also admit to myself that I will probably never do this again. Once in a lifetime. First and last time ever. Next year, it will be a hot and humid New Year's Even in the southern hemisphere where the water flows clockwise down the toilet.

The last 2.5 hours go by surprisingly fast. There's something to be said about the cold numbing the pain. I am beyond frostbitten and tired. I'm ecstatic. Ecstatic not only for the new year, but also so I can extract my bum from the metal barricade and go use a toilet. Once you leave the pen, you're not permitted back in - which makes me wonder how many people pee their pants just so they won't lose the spot they've been guarding for the last 7 hours.

And then it arrives. The last minute. The crowd starts to go off. Cameras flash more times than a dirty old man in a trenchcoat in front of school girls waiting at the bus stop. The sound of the merrymakers begins to boom and there is a rush of energy. I watch the countdown on the big screen and am screaming out the numbers with a million of my new close friends!

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1! FIREWORKS! MORE CONFETTI!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

There's a whole lot of hugging going on. A myth, however, is dispelled. People do NOT snog complete strangers here on NYE. There shall be no fish lips tonight.

Myself, Evelona (stylish 63 year old), Tania (psychiatric nurse) and Keven (creepy 26 year old from Montreal with bad acne and a laugh like one of the muppets - who I suspect has been trying to make the moves on me - ew) go for drinks and breakfast afterwards. Tania treats us all because she is so happy to have met solo travellers as nice as we (obviously, she does not think Keven is creepy - and I suspect that she is trying to set me up with him - ew). I think she also buys me breakfast because she may have mistaken me for a 17 year old destitute student on my first big trip away from home. Go figure.

And as we eat breakfast, I realise one extremely important detail about tonight.

The ball dropping in Times Square.

I forgot to watch it.

I was too preoccupied with the countdown on the big screen.

How the hell did I ever get my Bachelors degree, let alone a doctorate? That uses up all my blonde days for this year.

So, I need to return to do Times Square again. Properly. Come rain, snow or sleet.

Just so I can see the ball drop. I need to return for that 10 seconds.

Oh, and yes - that is my lame excuse for another trip to New York City.