NYC: 48.

annie_parade[Short history: Marisa, Bronwen, and I love the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in NYC and so we decided we wanted to go there. We flew up Tuesday morning, stayed at sweet Jamie’s place, then flew home Thursday afternoon. Marisa has already recapped here, if you wanna see her take on the trip.]

We were literally there for 48 hours. So I’m going to recap as such.

TUESDAY

4pm:: Arrive in NYC. Plane to train to W 89th St.

7pm:: Dinner at a delicious Peruvian restaurant in the Upper West Side.

8pm:: “Why does my stomach feel so grumpy?”

9pm:: “Oh well, let’s go to Serendipity anyways.” Insert frozen hot chocolate. Also known as “the last thing I really ate while in New York.”

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WEDNESDAY

11:30pm-5:30am:: You don’t want to know. Let’s just say that I didn’t really sleep all that much and it will be a LONG time until I eat beef, much less Peruvian beef.

5:30am-8am:: It only got worse.

8-11am:: Finally able to fall asleep. Dreamed of a life where I could forget the previous eight hours of the violent and lonely hell known as food poisoning.

12pm:: Make the trek alone down to Times Square [which, if you know me, know that the idea of traveling alone is scary because HELLO I HAVE NO SENSE OF DIRECTION] to meet up with Marisa and Bronwen. But I made it, albeit slow as a turtle because my energy? It was zapped. And then we shopped.

3pm:: Broadway, baby. I sang along, and I’m not ashamed of that.

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7pm:: Awesome pre-parade moment- seeing the balloons being inflated. Sure, we were the only people (without children) over the age of 20, but who. cares.

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THURSDAY

5:30am:: That is a seriously early wake-up call.

6:30am:: Grab a Starbucks then head to our spot at 73rd W and Central Park West.

And then we stood there. Just. Stood. There. As the crowd grew and grew. I mean, seriously. Is that not unreal?!? Not pictured: the vast amount of arguing and shoving that occurred around us. Wowsa.

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9:10am:: The parade begins!

And y’all. It was awesome. The bands were great. The balloons were every bit as huge as you would imagine, and the floats were loaded down with famous people that I had never seen before because I just plain don’t watch as much Disney Channel as I used to.

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10:35am:: The three hour parade that you watched on TV? Is actually 1.5 hours. And as the sleigh passed, I took the opportunity to yell, “I HAVE ALWAYS LOVED YOU!” which got me some strange stares– but when else will I be in the same place as the real Santa? Who can blame me?

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11am-4pm:: Roam around the city, take cool pictures of my feet and Central Park.

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Central park

4pm:: Head to JFK to fly home!

Would I go see the parade live again? Maybe. It was definitely cool and really worth it. But. You don’t get to see the performances or see the Disney stars de jour lip sync their greatest hit ever.

Will I ever take little children who might need to leave our spot at 8:15am because they have to use the bathroom and oh well, we will never get our spot back? ABSOLUTELY NOT.

Would I ever accept an invitation to be in the parade?

Duh.

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