Still Hate the Yankees.....But Always Enjoy a Good Parade

New York, New York

Today was the day that the City of New York celebrated the recently crowned World Series Champions...that's Major League Baseball's trophy in case you were not sure. They have an old fashioned ticker tape parade.....except that now they use mostly shredded paper that will be recycled. I had never been to one before......for any occasion, so I decided that since I had the day off I would check it out.

Some random strands of toilet paper that escaped after being thrown out a window.

Of course I would not be the only one there. They (don't ask me who "they" are) were estimating about 1 million people were attend. People down there stated it was more like 3 million and the news reported about 650,00 so who really knows. All I do know is that the subway trains were skipping stations because of the crowd and once you got in the crowd there really was no getting out....although people tried.

This is where I was hanging out. For those you who have been to Lower Manhattan, this is right at Ground Zero and Century 21. My plan was to get out at Wall Street but that was one of the stations that the trains were skipping so I got out one station early.

Me in the crowd. I didn't know those girls when I got to the parade but after a few hours in these close quarters we all got to know each other......even if just a little bit.

The crowd was really fun. Everyone were having a good time. By 8am this morning people were already lined up on the street 4-5 deep so you can imagine what it was like when I got there at 0930 (the parade didn't start until 1100 by the way). A couple things of note.....the stupidity of people. There were all kinds of people there with their little kids, one lady even had her 6 month old baby strapped to her chest. Who in their right mind takes a baby into a crowd like that?

Breathing was certainly a luxury most of the 3 hours I was there. Another thing...who ever put this thing together was not very smart. They put all the players on these floats, that barely sat above the level of the crowd so it was pretty difficult to see any of them if you were farther than 5 rows back. Of course they put all the Yankee staffers and employees on the top of Double-Decker buses in perfect view of everyone who attended. Not very smart. Every time a bus pulled up the crowd would boo and yell "Who are You? Who are You" and my favourite " Move that bus, Move that Bus". Quite entertaining.

This is the crowd behind me. They went back the entire block. Can't imagine anyone in the back saw anything.

Here is the best picture/video I actually got of a player. I might be wrong but I do believe the 2 players at the front are Nick Swisher and CC Sabathia.

So all the players went by. Missed most of them......and then it was over. All in all........a big disappointment but now I can say I was there. Of course if I was a Yankee fan my perception of the event might have been different. All the Yankee fans seemed to really enjoy it.

A little bit of the clean up after the parade. Apparently people were throwing important documents out the windows.....you know with people's names and info on it. I am sure some people got in trouble for it. No worries.....all of this paper was to be recycled.

Julie