At last, we made it to the raison d'etre of the trip: Williamsburg, VA for First Night. Why here for this holiday? Well, Bethany and I had wanted to spend it together, which did unfortunately mean no party in Somerville preceded by dinner with a massive pitcher of Shipyard Ale (my 2-3 previous New Years locations). Bethany first wanted to do Times Square, but after we learned we had to get there at 9 in the morning and wear a diaper if we actually wanted to save our spot, I looked for other options. I had wanted to go to Williamsburg because I figured it would be quite fun, and I had only been there once, when I was 1. We checked out First Night Williamsburg, and it seemed like a much better option. Absolutely craptons of concerts? Check. Baroque music and random guys playing folk music? Check. Being able to move from place to place? Check. Being somewhere new? Check. Alcohol? No....but it's a college town with a few bars. On the negative side, New York was probably aware of when midnight was. Stay tuned.
Anyway, given that we'd be up very late, Bethany and I lazed about for the morning, rolling out and walking to a nice local breakfast joint where very large people ordered their "usuals." There was a nice, nearly deaf 90-something man sitting in back of us treating a middle-aged woman to lunch (daughter? niece? business partner in black market organ dealings?). After our breakfast, which was our first non-Clif bar-and-cookie breakfast on the trip, we went back to our hotel, gathered our stuff, and went to our one definitely scheduled part of the day- a 1 PM appointment at the Williamsburg Salt Spa on the other side of Colonial Williamsburg. Salt spa? Well, we weren't sure if Berkeley Springs was going to work out because one of their main buildings was closed, and I had wanted to get Bethany something spa-like to help counteract her workaholicism. While doing research on Williamsburg, I discovered the salt spa, which is apparently the only one on the East Coast and something I had never heard of that sounded interesting. So I figured why not and made the reservation, and kept it even though we did Berkeley Springs as well. It wasn't too expensive anyway (about $25 per, if I remember.)
The salt spa was really a room with ridiculous amounts of salt in it- over 15 tons of salt in the walls, on the ceiling, and on the ground. You sat in the room for 45 minutes and breathed in the air, and it's supposedly as good as sitting by the seashore for three days or something like that. It's really meant for allergies and respiratory ailments, but it's also chilling out for an hour with running fountains in a giant room made out of salt with lots of middle-aged women on break from lunch. Bet you haven't done that recently. It was pretty cool- the chairs were comfortable, the fountains and music created a lovely ambiance, and, well, there was lots of salt. The lights were pretty cool as well, and we decided to get some candle holders since candles look sweet when refracted through the reddish-orange salt blocks. 
We decided to actually head into Williamsburg, stopping by William and Mary to pick up our tickets for First Night. Not knowing what to do, we went to the Visitor Center, where we figured that was where to pick up tickets to go into the houses. Thankfully, Bethany had been here before and knew the setup- I had absolutely no clue. Anyway, we got to the Visitor Center and, after a bit of stewing about the price of the tickets (over $40 apiece!), we got them, picked up a couple of maps and hopped on a bus into town. It was around 3:30 when we got to the Governor's Palace stop, so we didn't have much time before things closed at 5. We hit the Governor's Palace, some of the grounds behind it (including a maze and garden), the cook's barn to the side, and made it to the courthouse for a few minutes. The Governor's Palace was a nice half-hour tour, and the others were more poke-your-head-in-and-see stuff. Luckily, our tickets were for two days, and they were open on New Years Day, so we weren't totally shut out.After the courthouse closed at 5, we disappointedly saw that nothing was open except for the Public Hospital and the Museum, which were open until 7. The Public Hospital was a museum for the town insane asylum, and was about as creepy as one would imagine a museum dedicated to archaic medical practices would be. The other museum was ok- had some neat old coins and some authentic 18th-century keyboard instruments, which was neat to see. Overall, though, we were more interested in the period acting and historical exhibits than museum exhibits, and so we cut out. We decided to see if we could get into a tavern for dinner, but found out reservations were required, so we made the stroll back to William and Mary for First Night at around 7.
First Night was set up quite nicely- there were about 20 different concert halls and set times that performers would come on, so you could plan your trek (or not plan at all!) without staying in one spot. You had a button, and so you could go to any performance you wanted (and you weren't standing pressed with tons of other people!) Most performers played three different sessions spread throughout the night, while a couple only played early. We headed off to see the last show by the Virginia Handbell Consort, because handbell consorts are always pretty neat to see. Their director was quite cloying, but the musicians were excellent- the group had very tight synchronicity and sounded like one giant instrument. Most of the arrangements were kinda schlocky, though there was a good one of the Twelve Days of Christmas which nicely played with how repetitive the piece was.
After dinner, next up was the Hunt Family, who as we found out, were a mom, dad, and seven kids who could play guitar, sing, fiddle, and Irish step-dance! Bethany and I made pleasant small talk with the nice people next to us (again, able to talk to people next to us! We're not in Long Island anymore), and we got some tips for who to see over the rest of the evening. The group started late, but they did put on a really good show. They were listed as "Irish," but most of it was some cross of Eileen Ivers-ish arrangements with some step dance and occasional U2-like composition. The songs were meh, but the showmanship and talent of the family was top-notch. I also enjoyed watching the parents and making mental comparisons with the Jackson family (who was having fun? which parent was sacrificing their kids happiness for ever more fame? which child was really angry about performing and was gonna go to school to become an accountant and sever all ties? My answers for these questions were: the dad and the eldest daughter, the mom, and the youngest who was kinda put in the back and probably told to not make too much noise).
After them was a bit of a whirlwind- we saw in quick succession the Cavalier Consort, a baroque consort that was not particularly exciting (and didn't have two of the three members in the photo on the link!) They had a good recorder player, but they instead went with the violinist who tried hard but wasn't hitting all the notes and the theorboist who was just kinda boring. Seeing bland Baroque music really annoys Bethany, who is all about interesting, slightly wacky Baroque performance, so we left pretty quickly. Bethany then wanted to swing dance, so we went to the Williamsburg Swing Dance Orchestra. I had done some swing dancing a few years ago during undergrad, taking some lessons as part of an ethnography, but had pretty much forgotten. Bethany, determined to get me out on the dance floor, taught me some things so that it looked like I knew what I were doing, and then we cut some rugs, as they say. The band was solid, played the requisite hits ("Begin the Beguine" and "In the Mood", etc.), and did about 6 songs before going on break. We went then to the Hilton Brass Band, a group with rotating members, but the ones who played were impeccable musicians. They did stuff ranging from an arrangement of the Quodlibet from the Goldberg Variations to Sousa knockoffs to modern music. Considering we saw them on their third 45-minute concert, we were most impressed with their stamina and tone. Their performance was enhanced by their venue, a nice intimate Baptist church with excellent acoustics. One door over from them was No Strings Attached, a folk group of well-bearded men from somewhere in the mountains. Any group where half the members play hammer dulcimer, sing songs about avocados, and look like they'd been playing music casually with each other for about 30 years was all right with me, and provided a nice way to end the concert session. (While posting this, I found their website which showed their tweeting links and such. Well, they made a good show of hillbilly folkocity at least!) Bethany and I were most impressed with the musicianship, and enjoyed roving from concert to concert in the 50-degree weather.
The ending ceremony was, ummm, less inspiring. We got there at about 11:45, just in time to hear some old gospel singer with a frog in his throat sorta get through a karaoke version of "God Bless the USA," not exactly one of my favorites. The organizers then realized that it was about 11:50 and they had nothing to do. So, they stalled the audience until 11:56, at which time they apparently decided "Screw it, we're tired, we're dropping the ball and releasing the fireworks!" So they dropped the "ball," a inflatable pineapple (what pineapples have to do with anything is beyond me), with a countdown where each number was interrupted by the crowd saying "Nooooo! What are you doing! Stop!" and then an announcement of "HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!" at 11:56, four minutes early. Well, we were not pleased in the audience. And so instead everyone looked at their cell phones and did a sorta-unofficial countdown to midnight. Bethany and I joked about how everyone in the audience would be cursed to walk 2010 four minutes earlier than everyone else. It made for some good theater, and would make a great movie trailer I think. They also set off fireworks, which was nice except that it was foggy and so all you saw were clouds that kinda changed color sometimes. The fireworks also kept going, for over 15 minutes. We got bored and left. We had a celebratory whiskey at the bar and then trudged back to the Visitor's center, where we were the only car in the parking lot, and made it to bed by 2.
We rolled out the next day by 11 to go to a service at the Bruton Parish Church, a beautiful old Episcopal Church which was very similar to the Old North Church in Boston, with old plaques, tall pews, and some old tombstones within the church itself. It was a nice, quick service, and we spent the rest of the day going in and out of the different houses, starting at the church and working down Duke of Gloucester. The Magazine was fascinating, an original building that was the storehouse for weaponry with a host who was very knowledgeable about Revolutionary War. We hit some of the craftspeople (millinery, cooper, silversmith) and had lunch at the one tavern which didn't require a reservation, having lovely turkey sandwiches and delicious corn chowder. 
We continued to stroll down the street, stopping into the artisan houses on the way down to the Capitol. We then spent the last couple of hours with three fairly lengthy tours. We toured the Capitol, hearing about its role in fomenting revolutionary ideas and legislative acts and learning how colonial government worked in all its branches. (The picture to the left is in front of the building while waiting for the tour.) We passed through the jail, an original building, and wandered to the coffeehouse. The coffeehouse had by far the most impressive hosts, someone who acted like a loyalist (praising the intelligence of the governor!) and a slave. This helped flesh out the actors, many of whom acted as free, revolutionary whites, a population that would have been in the minority in actual colonial Williamsburg. The slave regaled a story about how the owner would get people into the store by offering a free two-ounce sample of coffee or chocolate, which would be "just enough to make people mad!" Then, to our shock, he led our group down into the basement, where they had free coffee and chocolate! Bethany had the coffee, and I grabbed the chocolate, which was amazing dark hot chocolate. True enough, it was just enough to make us mad and wanting more, but the line to actually buy some was too long, so instead we went to the Randolph House. This tour, which was of an original building, focused on the changes that the revolution had both on the Randolph family and their slaves. It was very interesting to hear the intimate details of what happened to the family members, a prominent colonial family which became less powerful during the years after the revolutionary war. Although these colonial showcases can be critiqued for creating a static view of colonial life, this tour showed the dynamics and complex social cartography of this time period. It had reached 5, and so we went toward Market Square, where we had a nice romantic dinner to close off the night. We had gotten to see pretty much all of the houses we were interested in, attended some wonderful concerts, got our exercise walking around, and best of all, it seemed like we weren't four minutes off from the rest of the world as we feared. We were both really happy with the decision to come here for a fun, relaxing, intellectually stimulating, and musically splendid New Years. Not going to Times Square was a most excellent decision. I'm pretty sure this won't be the last time we make our way down to Williamsburg.
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