The infinite parade (part 2)

 We waited a long time for the parade to arrive. It started at 3:00 and we didn't see it until well after 3:30. But meanwhile we saw bands and floats on their way to the starting line-up. Most of them were playing, and there were tons and tons of them. The parade starts at Burkliplatz, but they were all headed in the opposite direction, meaning the line stretched all the way to the train station.

Finally the parade arrived, and what happened then amazed Grandpa, even though he had predicted it. The parade, more than halfway through its route ran into its own tail - the bands, etc, still lining up forty-five minutes after the parade started and a mile from its beginning. They came face to face at the intersection next to us, each turning to their right. So we were able to see the beginning and the end of the parade at the same time. Or so we thought! More and more bands arrived. None of us could believe it. When we had to leave at 4:30 they were still arriving! We walked up to Coop by the station to get Grandma and Grandpa some dinner and saw groups lining up that were new to us, so there might have been another street filtering into the parade, too. 

Here is a map which might explain it better. Green is the parade route. Yellow is our location. Red shows where groups came from - it shows Limmatstrasse, but that was only until the parade officially started at 3:00. The red up by the station shows where we ran into the additional groups.

infinite parade map

Flag throwers.

Little boys with axes.

It's hard to see, but behind the men with axes, you can see a group coming in from the top right, on their way to line up for the parade.

Grandma was cold enough to wish for a pair of these tights.

There was an impressive variety of food thrown to the crowd. Here is Grandpa with a sausage before a concerned bystander warned him not to eat the casing. But I never would have expected to have sausages thrown to a parade crowd!

That UFO in the top left is a roll being thrown. We caught two! Grandpa joked that with Zurich prices we'd have to save them for his dinner.

When the cold got to be too much we asked the kids, "Are you about ready to go?" T yelled, "No! I don't have enough candy yet!" One of the marchers gave him a small rose bouquet. T turned and said, "These are for you, Mama!" It was so sweet! Later S was given a rose, too. We couldn't quite figure that out because most of the marchers had armfuls of flowers. The woman who intervened regarding Grandpa's sausage had tulips to give her father, who was marching, so I think that the giving usually went in that direction and we got lucky. Or maybe it is back and forth, considering all the give-aways. A marcher poured a glass of wine for the tulip woman. Grandpa tried to trade it for his roll. The poor woman almost did, out of politeness, but we assured her he was kidding.

Look who woke up! But what finally woke her? We don't know, but it wasn't the big band of men with enormous cowbells, or the yodelers, or the first dozen or so bands banging drums next to her head.

Here we are, nearly at the station, and they are lined up around the corner. The parade started ninety minutes ago, and who knows how long it will be before they get to the starting line.

At least someone finished the parade.

From Coop grocery store Grandma and Grandpa went back to their hotel. They watched the end of the parade and the Böögg on TV. We went to see it in person. However, when we got to Stadelhofen station it was pouring rain. S was ambivalent about whether she wanted to see the bonfire. We walked over to scope the situation. The parade was still in full swing at nearly 6:00. However, we  found the rain was heavy and the Böögg view was blocked a lot by umbrellas. Most importantly, S thought the Böögg was very cute and decided she really didn't want to see him burn. She asked, "Why do they make him so precious if they're just going to explode his head?" So we were glad to have seen him in person, but went home before 6:00. It's probably just as well that we missed the rush out of there afterwards.

 Why is he so precious???