Last night I was still awake at 12.30am, knowing full well I had to be up very early to get into the City to get a good viewing position for the Thanksgiving Day Parade. The worry of sleeping in resulted in me waking up every hour on the hour to make sure I would make it in. The parade didn’t start until 9am but I wanted to be in the city by 7.30 because I had no idea what to expect.
I woke up at 6am and decided I should not go back to sleep because if I did, there was no way I would get up. So, I had a quick Skype call to mum while I was still all cosy under the covers and before long I was on the train and looking at the skyline on a beautiful and brisk (make that very brisk) Thanksgiving morning.
When I got to the Times Square station, I tried to get the 1 train up to the 50th street stop – being a Sunday (holiday) timetable the trains were few and far between for the number of people that were waiting so I shelved that idea and decided to walk as I really wanted my viewing position to be between 50th and 55th on Broadway.
Walking was a bad bad idea. The traffic/pedestrian control that was in place made it virtually impossible to get anywhere easily – I had to walk two blocks back from where I wanted to be in almost a single file line. It was very reminiscent of what was organised for Halloween to control the flow of the crowd. Approximately 3.5 million people turn out to watch the parade… so you can tell it isn’t just a small crowd issue! Once I walked down to 6th, I then walked 7 blocks down then another 2 blocks in and got to Broadway. I found myself with a not-too-bad viewing position at 48th and Broadway at 8am. Now all that was left to do was wait. And wait. And wait.
With everyone jammed together it wasn’t that cold at first. At first. I was still warm from the walking. By the time the parade made it down to where I was (at about 9.20am) I was positively FROZEN. I looked back and couldn’t believe the crowd that had collected behind me – I was actually so close to the front – so lucky! The little kids around me were really well behaved considering they had to wait so long, could hardly see anything and it was so cold. As for the adults… ugh some of the most annoying tourists ever! I had to keep my iPod on while I was waiting for the parade to begin to stay sane.
As the parade started it was just awesome to see my favourite ever childhood toys/cartoon, The Smurfs, seemingly come to life! Also, the other highlight was seeing Big Bird and Mr Snufalupagus on the Sesame Street float. The huge balloons are fantastic because wherever you are, you can see them. Another awesome part was the fantastic marching bands. I really could listen to them all day. By about 11.15 my feet were actually hurting they were so frozen and all the kids were getting restless and grizzly, so I called it a day. Standing on cold concrete, in one position for so long meant that walking one block took a long time.. my feet just could not work properly!
I was home just in time to see the end of the parade on TV and I must say – it was a better experience simply because you could see the detail of the floats, understand who was on them and also, see the performances that were taking place out the front of the Macy’s store (where the parade ends).
Here are all the photos I took – crowd favourite would have been Buzz Lightyear.
It wasn’t long before I was spending Thanksgiving in true Australian style. A long nap. I didn’t even get changed – straight into bed to defrost and gosh… what a good sleep it was!