Parade of Lights

You'll just have to take my word for it, it was beautiful. I have no pictures, not a single one, because my phone died while I was on the bus. But, I'll get to that in a moment.

Every year, the Chronicle Herald puts on a Christmas Parade of Lights in downtown Halifax, it's big and beautiful and signals the HRM that, yes, it's okay to start decorating/shopping for Christmas. Yes, local businesses, put out all of your Christmas loot (if they haven't already) and blast Jingle Bells non-stop until January 1st. So, that happened last night, I decided to take the littles on my own because Matt was working away. I didn't want them to miss out on ringing in the Christmas spirit! We took the bus (my favourite) which was uneventful, made it downtown, grabbed some food and ate it picnic style while we waited.

My sister in law joined us once the parade started and it was nice to have company, then I tried to take a few pictures, my phone was dead. D E A D. I was downtown, in a crowd, with no phone. If Beth hadn't been there, I may have thrown up. But, she had hers (because who doesn't carry a phone anymore?) and so that was reassuring enough to enjoy the rest of the parade.

The bus home was easy, walk five minutes to the terminal, get on, get off right outside my front door. Super simple, fool proof even. Except, we waited and waited and waited and it never came. Well, maybe it did, but everyone in Dartmouth had come out for the parade and so Metro Transit authority thought it best to shuttle them all back home first, turning my super simple bus into a Dartmouth ferry bus. Twice. After an hour, and with no one left at the terminal except us and the homeless, I took a different bus, it was supposed to take me close to home, the driver would call us a cab and we wouldn't get kidnapped. Basically. It was also 9:30 at this point.

On the new bus, we had the pleasure of sitting next to a inebriated, older gentleman who was having a hard time keeping his Saturday night celebrations down. Fun. Then the bus driver tells me, "Lady with the kids that needs a cab...get out here, I'll call one." She lets us out in a terrible neighbourhood, and either never called a cab OR the cab just didn't show up. I waited half an hour either way. So I walked home, with the littles, at 10 p.m. in a bad neighbourhood.

I don't want to seem like I'm complaining but, come on. What have I done in my life that the universe had turned on me like that? We made it home, littles fell asleep in the stroller on the walk, we weren't  kidnapped, so not a terrible night. Just not a very good one.