No Rain on this Parade

The sun shone bright and clear on December 1st - Romania's National Day. A great day for a parade! 

Apparently a lot of other people thought so too!

The parade is to your left in this photo. The children sitting on their father's shoulders were about 3 rows back.  This wasn't looking too hopeful for us!

Folks resorted to perching in trees to get a view.

We liked the patriotic scarf on this guy.

This appeared to be as close as we would get, so we settled in and took pictures by standing on tip toe and holding the camera above our head.

Police were well represented.

Pompier (Fire Service) and the different divisons: Structural, Wildland firefighters, Search and Rescue and First Responder. In Romania the fire department is a division of the military.

The military was by far the most prominent part of the parade.  No marching bands or majorettes though. If there were politicians and government leaders, we missed them.

 We saw tanks...

Rocket Launchers.....

and heavy tanks. This fellow was among the many crowd control guys who manned the parade route.

There were assault vehicles....

motorcycle police....

security police....

and border patrol.

Just like at home, the fire equipment was near the end of the parade. These guys and the mounted police below were the only ones who received applause from the crowd.

The obligatory street sweepers followed close behind.

Sitting up smartly in very formal uniforms. The parade lasted about 45 minutes.  It included fly-overs by helicopters, MIG's and bombers.

This clever busker took advantage of the event to try to make a little money. He added a little percussion with the tamborine under his foot.

This was the scene at the Metro station after the parade. Randy figures there were half a million people at this event. Don't you wish you could have been here with us?