Before the Parade Passes By

Last night, nearly all of the current participants of the Victoria Summer Youth Ministry Project (minus Chris, who was working -- and that is more of a description than the official title) attended the annual Symphony Splash concert in the Inner Harbour. The Victoria Symphony played on a barge in the Inner Harbour, while 40 000 Victorians and tourists crowded around the harbour to listen and watch. The concert was so much fun; they performed the Imperial March from Star Wars, and the 1812 Overture, complete with cannons and fireworks.

After the concert closed with "Amazing Grace" on bagpipes (it was seriously beautiful: there were so many pipers, and the symphony was also playing, and people were singing), we had to get out of the harbour and back to our car. The other four wanted to get home quickly, because they were getting up in the wee sma's of the morning to catch the 7:00 ferry. We formed a chain, weaving through the crowd, trying to get back up to Government Street. (Please see the map below: we were sitting at Point A, and Ky's car was parked at Point X.) We climbed a wall, realising that it could take half an hour to climb the stairs back up to the street. When we got on to Government Street, I thought the most difficult part was over, until I saw the huge crowd in front of the Empress Hotel. And heard the bagpipes. Apparently, the final FINAL part of the show was a bagpipe parade up Government Street, as a significant portion of the evening's attendants marched along, filling the street and the sidewalks. We joined the parade for a while, marching and dancing, while still in a chain (we were determined not to lose each other). The parade was going pretty slowly, and so we decided to branch off on Humboldt Street (our path is in pink, while the parade path is in brown). All of us still holding hands, we paraded along Gordon Street until Ky realised that the parade was going to be passing right in front of Ky's car! The only way we'd be able to get home anytime soon was if we beat the parade to Fort Street and zoomed away before they crossed!

If any of you readers happened to be in downtown Victoria last night, we were that chain of people holding hands while charging down Gordon Street, five people wide. When we turned back toward Government Street, the very front of the parade was at about point B, and so we cut in front of it and sprinted to the car. We madly unlocked the doors and fastened our seat belts, as Ky peeled on to the road... to a red light. When the light turned green, we got about half a foot into the intersection when the parade arrived. And so we rolled down our windows and enjoyed ourselves, as a parade of pipers and thousands of revellers marched past and around our car, calling our their sympathies to us that we didn't quite make it.

When we finally made it across that street, after the final marchers passed, we received a cheer from everyone who had been hanging out on Government Street.