Day+04+Carnival+-+Adult+Parade+and+Fireworks

Day 4
On day 4 of our trip we traveled to downtown Charlotte Amalie to observe the Adult Parade, which is a part of Carnival, and began at sunrise. As the Caribbean sun began to shine higher in the sky people were lined up with their family as they began to pick out the best spots along the parade route. One thing that was notable was the number of local people at the parade. The parade took place in a district of the city that is normally heavily traveled by tourist, however on this particular day locals seemed to take their district //back// for an event that was all //their own//. They took pride in the pageant contestants and the local beauty queen that drove in the parade.

The contestants, and the queen, drove in very nice sports cars and were in some ways the highlight of the parade, at least when it came to non-musical parade participants. For the musical participants there were steel drums as well as majorettes. During Jouvert, or Roas-A-Time as locals call it, many non-locals participated, however this parade was highly structured and more like one would expect a parade to look like at home. There were few non-locals in the parade. Another thing in particular that we noticed about the parade was the pace. Traditionally parades are not very fast, but this parade was especially slow. At the very end of the parade, where people waited for their turn to enter the show, many participants sat and had lunch, some in the local graveyard, and patiently waited for their part of the parade to start. One thing that was notable about the parade was that it was very family oriented. Jouvert, which ironically enough was also very family-oriented, would probably be far less acceptable in the mainland United States.Overall the parade was very exciting and revealed subtle but interesting things about the local culture. Following the parade, there is a fireworks celebration to top off a wonderful celebration