Today we caught the cable car from Powell St to Market St to see the San Francisco St Patricks Day Parade. The parade runs from 2nd St to Market St and was scheduled to start at 11:30am. As we were standing at the Civic Centre in Market St, it took about 20 mins for the parade to reach us.
Heaps of people were wearing berets and hats in green and white, green feather boa’s and green beads. The atmosphere was festive and there were plenty of spaces to stand and sit, which we did on the the cold concrete until the first parade participants reached us.
The day was warm and sunny which made a pleasant change from some of the wet, cold, windy weather we have been experiencing here in San Francisco. Even riding on the cable car was a pleasure today.
The parade was spread out and at times there were long gaps between the floats and ended around 1:30am. There were the customary pipe bands that both Paula and I love, old cars, girls dressed in traditional Irish costumes, representatives of the SFPD, Firemen, the Trade Unions, the Asian community, the waste management workers and an assortment of other community groups that all lead to the parade being a great success.
As the various floats passed by the participants tossed out lollies, toys, beads and I caught a stress ball left handed at an awkward angle, a guy behind called out “quick – sign her up”. We handed our goodies to a young girl who ended up with quite a collection of stuff much to her delight.
This group were really entertaining and amusing.
After the parade ended we headed up Powell St to catch a cable car up the steep hill to Coronation St to catch the cable out to Van Ness to Circuit City. We need a digital recorder to document our travels as we are out and about and after the fiasco with Apple and the Ipod we decided to buy a stand alone, pc compatible unit.
Filed under: America & Canada • San Francisco • Video
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Wanda and Paula are friends and business partners that love to travel. We developed this website to share our experiences, what we've learned over the years and also to provide reviews on hotels, airlines, restaurants and anything else travel related.
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