Jason, Shannon and I headed down into the city for the parade madness this morning. It was crazy how many people were at the train station when we got there at 8:15am...it was just a sea of red! We were lucky enough to squeeze our way right onto a train and managed to get one of the last seats. They crowded as many people on as they could, so a lot of people were standing the whole way down (plus the overcrowding meant that the ticket guy never got to us, so we had a free ride down and back!).

We got into the city 3 hours before the parade started and it was already a mad house. We managed to find a great spot near the beginning of the parade route, right on the corner of 19th and Market, so we were right up front on the street. And trust us, holding that spot for 3 hours was not easy. There were constantly people trying to push in front of us. Luckily we had some cops right there helping us in the beginning. The photo above is the crowd across the street from us.

About 45 minutes before the parade started a group of teenagers came up behind us and asked to stand in front of us. When we politely said no because we had stood there all morning they tried to tell us that they were there first and we cut in front of them. So for the next 45 minutes we listed to those kids and their parents heckel us for being "10 ft tall and ignorant" because we wouldn't allow "children" to stand in front of us so they could see (trust me, these were not small children, I swear the one girl was at least 25, she was just really short). Anyway, we exchanged some words, the people standing in the front with us defended us, but the kids wouldn't give up, so we just ignored them. They weren't ruining this parade for us! Bring on the Philly Phanatic!!!!!

Charlie Manuel