Sunday, July 06, 2008

Crazy Philadelphia


wow
Originally uploaded by dieselboi.
We went to the 4th of July Celebrate America parade in downtown Philadelphia on Friday. What a crazy environment. They shut down a primary artery in downtown- Ben Franklin Parkway and setup vendors and music and activities for everyone. It was free and somewhat free of hassles. In Portland, anytime you go to a public event, you get searched and prodded and your water bottle taken. Here, while there were police everywhere, it wasn't a situation where I felt like the man was keeping me from having fun. We walked around a lot amongst probably 100,000 people. Honestly, the crowd felt a little light, but as the day went on, it grew and grew.
The parade was a typical 4th of July parade. Not a small town parade, but not a big float one either. There were a couple of marching bands and dance troupes and floats with Miss Philadelphia and the local municipal workers. One thing we were not prepared for were the insane costumes and the string bands. Yep, whole marching bands with banjos and the like. Did i mention the crazy over the top costumes? Most of the day, we were joking and commenting that we hadn't seen too many tattoos nor tall bikes or anything that would be commonplace in Portland. And then the parade came and we saw Philly's alternative scene. They love the crazy outfits.

Oh, and I didn't plan this photo. It happened that way.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Philly rocks out all other citie ha ha if u don't live in pbilly u suck