I woke up at 5 a.m. on Thanksgiving with one goal: Get to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade as early as possible — and get out just as quickly.
The parade, which draws millions of spectators each year, was scheduled to start at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, and city officials recommended getting there at 6 a.m. to get a decent spot. I had gone the night before to watch the balloons getting inflated, which was a crowded mess of people. If the real deal was anything like the event on Wednesday, I thought, it was going to be a brutal morning.
When I arrived around 6 a.m., hordes of people had already gathered, lining the street along Central Park. Many people brought chairs, and some were lying on the sidewalk as if they'd already been there for hours.
I settled in behind a family, and prepared to be disappointed, frustrated, and claustrophobic. But those feelings never came. In fact, despite waiting for hours in the cold and dark, I felt a child-like sense of joy — and ended up having a great time.
Here's what it was like.