some new year's axioms, both learned and remembered

First, it doesn't take very long to walk downtown. Even stopping at Uprising Bakery for coffee, it took me less than 45 minutes to get to the parade spot. And I am a Rambler rather than a Strider.

I've noticed before that the Vancouver buses don't seem very fast, but this confirmed it. It would take twenty minutes to get there on the bus, and the walk is good for you, if you don't count the smog.

Second, don't try to go to the bathroom just before a parade. I found a shopping centre easily enough, but there was a huge crowd around the bathrooms -- all women. I tried to cut through and was pressed back by a tide of women. Furtive lone men swam through the gaps.

On my way out, I managed to strike a small child on the head with the door. Go Jules. I didn't open the door very quickly, but it still make a resounding CLUNK, and everyone in line went, "Oooh." I snuck away under cover of a mass debate about whether the staff washrooms should be temporarily opened up to the public.

Third, if you wait up near the far end of a parade route to avoid the crowds, you will spend a long time in Parade Limbo, craning your neck up the street to see if anyone is coming.

For a long time before we could see anything, we could smell the sweet, almost edible scent of firecrackers, and hear them going off in clusters, so that it sounded like rapid percussive music instead of explosions.

I sat down to make some notes, and when I looked up the street had filled in. I couldn't convince anyone to hold me on their shoulders, so I moved down further.

Highlights of the parade included a mind-numbingly adorable children's dance troupe, all wearing shiny gold monkey costumes and flinging their tails around, occasionally smacking each other. Linda's band was supposed to be in thirty-ninth position, but I seem to have missed them.

Afterwards I walked through the International Village market. It was packed, making this the only time I've ever seen more than four people inside the Tinseltown mall at a given time, including the janitor and the people working in the food fair.