This town loves a parade

Yesterday after church we found ourselves in the middle of yet another boisterous New Haven parade. There have been quite a few since St. Patrick's Day. For some reason people here love to go out to the street and excitedly watch people, dogs, marching bands, trucks, anything. As we ate our lunch at Bruegger's Bagels we got to see Ronald McDonald standing on top of an ambulance waving a Puerto Rican flag. Now that's exciting! Our lunch with friends had just started to wrap up when we saw the commotion. We stared for several minutes trying to understand WHY. We were stunned really and ended up lingering for about 30 minutes because we were just fascinated by the cultural phenomenon that is New Haven and Parades.

Last week during Sameer's graduation his whole class from the Divinity School had to walk together for about a mile to join the rest of the university for the downtown ceremony. He said that pedestrians on the street began stopping and cheering for them as they walked down the hill. To them it was probably just another parade.