So I am recovered from my flu, but man am I still sleeping! Liem had to wake me up! Today was the big carnival parade!
The website stated the parade began at 11am, but I distinctly remember waiting 4.5 hours for it to begin in 2007 in the heat! One does not forget this. Liem, however, was hell bent on trusting the website...and we were at the end of the parade route in 2007, so we decided to go ahead and head to St. John's at 10:30am.
Upon arrival, I noticed that there were very few vendors and no one was staking out spots so we began asking locals about the parade time. Always, always get a second and even third opinion on the islands. The concensus was it was to start at 12:00 sharp, which meant more like 1:30pm. We went ahead and found a great spot in the shade with a nice deep curb that made it a little more comfortable to sit...and we waited. To help pass the time (and stop the kids from griping), we bought some fresh pineapple juices and some sugar cane to chew on. The kids bought some more genips and ate through those pretty quickly.
Finally, about 1:30pm, the parade began. We stayed for about 2.5 hours watching the floats go by. The islands are so funny...no one is ever on time for anything. The first float with the queen, went by...queen aboard. The next 4 floats were empty!! We saw the costumed people boarding the floats during the parade. Funny. The title of this blog, Stop Your Cryin' is the winner of the Carnival Soca Music contest this year. We've been listening to it all over the radio and tons at the parade. Think this song will never leave my head!
There isn't a lot of structure to the carnival parades. Its really just folks in costume, dancing down the street for the most part. Occassionally there is a sign that states some kind of theme or group. The costumes are wonderful. Bright colors, glitter, sparkle, against that beautiful dark skin. The contrast is very striking and they all look really beautiful.
The only issue we had at the parade was a group of two or three Greek families that proceeded to come stand right smack in front of us despite the fact we were sitting down on the curb watching the parade. Ok, fine, we can stand, but they blocked Cohen's view. They then proceeded to completely stop the parade multiple times, shoving their kids out into the parade route to get pictures of the kids with the costumed parade folks. Several times the kids said they did NOT WANT to do it, but they'd force them to. I'd watch them...they'd see a character or costume they liked, they'd point it out to each other, then they'd turn and look for the closest kid. It was extremely annoying. Everyone around us was clearly annoyed as well. And they classify American's as rude? Sheesh.
After we'd had our share of the parade, the heat, and the Greeks, we walked back to the car, that we had managed to park in the shade, and headed home to eat. We took a swim, had some dinner and spent the rest of the evening chillin' out.
Tomorrow? Maybe a beach early on, but then its laundry and packing the rest of the day. So sad! It went SO dang fast!! I feel like we just got here. I am hopeful that we can do this again, maybe next summer or the summer after. We'll see!
