As usual, I went to see this parade with the children, but not by car. We grabbed sky-train, ‘cuz it’s really painful to find a parking spot on such an occasion. We arrived approximately one hour and a half in advance, and right away found ourselves in the joyful crowd of people. Interestingly, the parade was being held somewhat early — on the 21st of November, i.e., more than one month before Christmas.
We contrived to find a nice sitting spot at the https://arbetov.com/managearticle.asp?.a=9&.c=160.3 Vancouver Art Gallery, — we took seats on top of the lion statue, which was above the stairs. The view from there was pretty good. The parade began with some delay: instead of 11 a.m. it started at 11:30 and continued approximately until 1 p.m. (initially they planned it to be finished in 70 minutes). They say, the show gathered more than 200 thousand spectators.
What was the uniqueness of the parade? Well, first of all, as always, it was pretty picturesque. About 60 floats – bands, clowns, platforms with animals, etc. – passed by in front of us. All of them were colourfully designed and contained many interesting features. Also there were numerous ethnic floats with people from India, China and so on dressed in national costumes. And here we go – the hit of the Parade: Santa Klaus. Children were happy to watch all this, and obviously they had lots of fun. Now and then, alas, we could hear obscenities, — someone would stomp on someone’s foot, and an innocent victim would growl in pain. However, voices of dissatisfied folks were lost in rejoicing of the happy ones in our multicultural city of Vancouver. Unfortunately, also those who arrived late had to force themselves to move forward, and hence a brawl might occur from time to time. A person or two appeared out of crowds with a bruised nose. Alas, even in the civilized West fights do happen, don’t they? L
Who was the organizer and sponsor of the parade? It was the well-known financial group Rogers Video, Rogers Wireless & Rogers Radio. Yet, I’m not working for them so I don’t call on you to go and buy a cellular phone from Rogers, — mine is from Bell. I think, they are all the same, with identical features, just the plans may vary slightly depending on a provider. Well, except Fido, which offers making unlimited local calls just for 45 dollars a month. H-m, plus tax, naturally.
All right, and the parade is about to be done. Everyone looks happy and contented. The only bad thing – there is no snow yet. Also the parade organizers learned their lesson: next year they promise to improve the show, to make it better planned, etc. They say the next year’s parade will spread out to more streets and avenues of downtown Vancouver. There is also going to be less unnecessary space between floats. Yet this applies to next year only and we have to wait awhile. So, what is left to me is just to wish you all folks Merry Christmas and Happy new Year!
Stay with us,
Mitch