After a wakeful night as a result of the stinky smokers next door, we managed to get up and made it to the breakfast kindly put on by the AKA Central Park. We left around 8.30 in plenty of time, so we thought, to make the two stop subway journey. Hitting 44th street and turning left to go to 42nd street and Bryant Park subway station, we were stuck on the corner. 15 minutes later we’d made the on block walk to the subway. Announcements let us know that 59th street, where we were going was congested and trains weren’t stopping there, we instead hot off at 47th street, wrapped around the back of the Rockefeller Centre and walked ten blocks down 5th avenue to 58th street. As 6th avenue was the parade route it was impossible walking that way, but 5th was clear and all the cross streets leading from 5th to 6th, we didn’t have to wait for lights, do we made the walk in about 15 minutes.
We arrived just after 9 and were soon ushered up to the sky suite on the penthouse level.
We were two of a handful of regular guests invited to this special event. A beautiful breakfast was laid on with croissants, muffins, pastries and plenty of tea and coffee. We grabbed some food and sat outside on the lounge best the warmth of the fire. We reminisced about 12 months ago when we stood on the street to watch the parade. It was minus 4 and we stood in the one spot for about six hours, frozen until the end of the parade. This time was different. Firstly it was a lot warmer, about 10 degrees. We had a nice sunny spot and there was no crowd. And we had good and a warm cup of tea.
The parade started and we watched the first few bands, dancers, floats and balloons. Mardi moved inside and sat in the penthouse and watched some of the parade on TV. I wandered around and took photos from different spots. I was standing next to a man when I heard that familiar Aussie accent and I said G’day. Col and his family were from Bribie island in Queensland on a six week holiday.
He was a miner and raking a break. I told him where I worked and his face lit up, his son was desperate to learn to fly. We got talking, and worked out Caboolture was right best them and I filled him and his son in on how to get sorted to get his pilot certificate.
We chatted about our NYC experiences, compared sights and restaurants. His son asked me a million questions about flying and had his head soon buried in our new website reading and finding out how to join.
While we were chatting another Aussie joined us, Mary from Adelaide. She was here to sing at Carnegie Hall. Amazing the people you bump into on top of a building watching giant balloons.
We parted ways and carried on with our day. The sun was shining overhead and Mardi and I joined the throng in Central Park. We wandered through the zoo area and looked at all the animal statues. We continued our way uptown for ten or so more blocks before finding a seat in the sun and sat for a while.
We watched a trio if squirrels for a while as they skittered, hunted and buried nuts. Funny little critters.Â
After a while we wandered home. The streets were still packed. Some 3.5m people lined the streets today, that’s ten time the population of CANBERRA. An amazing amount if people and most of them were still out.Â
We had lunch in and an afternoon snooze (I watched some NFL), before we headed out for a traditional thanksgiving dinner downtown.Â
We arrived a little late for dinner and had to wait for our table, so we enjoyed a cocktail at the bar. We were invited to our table about half an hour later and sat down to our traditional thanksgiving dinner. Turkey and pumpkin pie. Dinner was yum and we also enjoyed some octopus, pate and some chocolate ice cream.Â
After dinner we caught the subway home.
Sadly when we got home the smokers next door were at it again. But we quickly solved that and enjoyed a good night sleep.
