From there, moved a little north to get into Central Park for the Opening Ceremonies' Parade of Nations. I must say, this was the most poorly organized event I've been part of.
First off: our instructions told us to go to CPW & W 69th St. Well, once we arrived there, we were advised we actually needed to go to 72nd St. Well, why not tell us this from the get-go? It's not like they didn't know that would be the case.
Then, once we arrived and were let in to the area for check-in, there were 3 sections for people to check-in -- alphabetical by first letter of country (as known in English).
(Some of the Aussies in their outfits, waiting to check in.)
(Unbeknonwst to me at the time, this gent was the flag bearer for his home country. Gee, I wonder where he's from. :-) )
OK, so I went to the U.S. portion of things. Even though there were 5 or 6 people at each of the three sets of tables, only ONE person at each table had the list of names for people to check in, so there was no efficiency in getting multiple people through at one time.
I took a look at the list while the lady was looking for my name. While names were properly broken down by country, there was absolutely no rhyme or reason present on the print-out for the order: it was not alphabetical by first or last name, nor by e-mail address. There was no other information for the people on the list, so finding names was much slower than it should have been.
Then, once we made our way down and were handed our now individual small flag, we stood by our designated section... immediately after the check-in tables (since we're host country, we were understandably last, after Zimbabwe).
(Taken as we were finally under way during the parade.)
Very little space for our delegation before you get to the next flags in order. We were basically in the way for anyone else moving to earlier country sections, not least of which the UK, which also had a large contingent.
We never actually knew when the ceremonies began. They didn't pipe in any video or audio for the delegations further back. So, it was really just milling about for about 1.5 hours. The "parade" really was brief. It was maybe 3 blocks of slow walking before we got to the finish line, which was where the delegations were all introduced.
(Here's a quick view of the vicinity after the coverage finished, before the fireworks started)
Disappointingly enough, even though the intended audience for the fireworks was the group of hundreds of runners participating in the parade itself, the fireworks were obscured by the trees. Come on!
After a couple of minutes, I decided to leave before the fireworks ended, so I could actually get properly underway to meet up with friends for dinner. Interestingly enough, I had a better view right after I got outside the parade perimeter.
The night finished with dinner with a couple of local friends at Mom's, down in Hell's Kitchen. Interesting place, eclectic menu to handle various tastes. A little loud, but nothing too bad. And the food was quite tasty.
Time is getting close. Saturday is one more Broadway show, meeting up with mym mom (and her friends) for dinner, and then back to the hotel to prep for the big day!
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