However. . . in other news, the Phillies won the World Series! Philadelphia is euphoric. I didn't work on Thursday, and the big Parade was on Friday. I took the train in to work, and it was packed. Phillies fans were already wandering around, clogging the Starbucks - so I had to drink work coffee. And it was just a mass of people. I've never seen so much red and white in one place in my life. We were hoping the library would be closed, but no such luck. It might have happened if it wouldn't have been for WHYY, our local PBS TV station, filming for a spot about the Chew Papers. They were around until 3:30 and the powers that "were", decided we couldn't close on their behalf. That's okay. We wouldn't have seen much of the parade anyway.
Leah, two interns, and I tried at 12:30 to get to the parade route. It was simply tides of people. On Spruce we couldn't get within half a block of Broad St. So we snuck around to Cypress, one of those little bitty streets and we did get much closer. We pushed into the crowd as far as it was possible to go. We'd push some more and there was no where for anyone to go. So we were stuck. I did capture an image of the Philly Fanatic. (the Phillies mascot (!?)).
We landed in front of the Kimmel Center which was crammed with people. We did get to see the floats go by, and we saw a few of the team. I just thought it was great to be with so many happy people. 
On our way back to HSP we saw this gentleman with his pipe and I had to shoot a picture of him. It's amazing how old men love to have their picture's taken. Then he told me about going to Reading Terminal that morning and since it was Halloween - I should be careful going home. He also said, wouldn't it be great if we were this happy 365 days of the year. Yes, wouldn't it.
We got back to HSP to find Tyrone (one of our Facilities guys) filming all of the millions of people coming off of Broad St. We sat on the front porch to eat our lunch for about a half hour, and the waves of people did not let up. There is a PATCO (New Jersey Transit) entrance right next to our building and at one point it there was no place for anyone to go they just mobbed the street waiting to get down the stairs. When we went back inside, Dr. Dan told us they heard in the news that SEPTA (South Eastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority) gave up on getting people to center city. They just stopped running trains. This is after they had already doubled and added more cars to their usual number of trains. Pretty amazing.
The people just didn't stop either. The stadiums are sort of walking distance from center city, so after the parade half of the 2million people that apparently came went to the stadiums. At 5:30 when I was headed over to UArts, all of those millions were headed back up Broad. They didn't stop coming. What a great day for Philadelphia, I know all of the businesses in center city go a great financial boost. Our favorite lunch spot was jammed. And I am very happy for them.
I just wish that if Obama wins, we would have the same euphoria and the same celebration.
1 comment:
Hope Obama wins too!
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