December 2007

Saturday afternoon we went to a surprise party for Angelo, who celebrated his 30th birthday.

Chris had organized a party for him at noon in the International House with food, drinks and music and we had a good time. It was nice to chat with everybody again.

We went home for 1,5 hour and prepared for the Christmas party of the Duke Economics department. It was in George's Garage, and they did a pretty decent job of feeding the 250 people or so at the party. We had a really nice evening there, and spoke to quite a few people. A lot of our friends are leaving for their home countries with the holidays, many are leaving this week already.

Angelo's cake.

This morning I was with the Jaycees in Chapel Hill to help in the organization of the Chapel Hill Christmas Parade. The Chapel Hill Jaycees did that for the first time this year, and things went really well.

I was in the "walking groups" area and we made sure all the marching bands and other groups started in the right order. There were about 2,000 participants in the parade, and with 15 volunteers and some experienced community members things worked out really smoothly.

There was a nice variety of participants, I liked the Chick-fil-a cows. There was even a girl in a traditional Dutch costume and a Sinterklaas!

Early in the morning the first vehicles were getting ready. The streets were closed from 8.00 am, and the parade started at 10.00 am.

When there's a parade, you don't want to have your car parked on the street...

We made sure all walking groups were in the right order, and they lined up on the parking lot of the Moorehead Planetarium.

Lots and lots of people walking in the parade, including many kids. Almost 250 girl scouts!

Santa's sleigh.

Waiting to start walking.

Dutch girl and Sinterklaas.