startin' off the year with a parade

I've been in plenty of parades in my 37 years but have never been to a "major" parade - you know, one that has more people watching the parade than are in it.  When I realized there was a parade on New Year's Day I told Sean we just HAD to go.

There were balloons…

floats…

AMAZING costumes…

funny things…

and British things.

However, there was way too much of this…

this…

and this.

Almost all the participants in the parade, other than the floats, were Americans.  Being an American it's not really what I want to see in a parade in another country.  I thought the part that was British was the best part and sent such a great message.  Each of the London boroughs submitted an entry with a theme to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the parade.  The borough that won received a donation to the charity of the mayor's choice.  They collected change from the spectators for the charities, too.  What a great way to start off the year!

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I was a little tired last night when I posted about new year's eve and failed to tell you all the fun stuff about the experience of watching the fireworks in London.  First of all, make sure to crank your volume when you watch the video so you can hear Big Ben chime in the new year (my favorite).  You can see how they counted down the time on the building to the left of where the fireworks start.  You can also see how they shot some of the fireworks from the London Eye.  SOOO COOL!!!

The other amazing thing was the organization that went into getting people to the viewing areas.  Pretty much all the streets were shut down except the ones they wanted you to walk down to get to the viewing areas.  Even though there were estimated 250,000 people there watching I didn't think it was that bad getting out of there - only 2 hours (took like 20 minutes to get there as a comparison).

We got to our spot just before 9:00 PM.  They allowed people to bring in alcohol!  We didn't have any with us (Sean wasn't feeling well from our pub experience the night before - more about that later) but there was plenty around.  We even met a lovely couple from Nottingham that shared their champagne with us for a midnight toast!  They were so nice and we spent the majority of our 3 hour wait chatting it up with them.

Getting home we walked most of the way and gave a little new year prayer at St Paul's Cathedral.   We braved the tube for the last part - experience in itself.  Sean nearly lost his hand in the door and almost didn't get on - I had to tug on his hand - he says his feet weren't even touching the ground as he finally got on because the mob just carried him on.