It's been awhile I know and I'm terribly sorry for the delay although I have not had much free time to blog. Okay let's see 4th of July was absolutely amazing! The plan was to find a good spot along the parade route in the morning, and then head back to the RAF afterward to cool off before fireworks. So the group of us headed out moderately early, left here around 9:45am to get a good shady spot to sit in and watch the parade. The parade was set to begin at 11:45am. We arrived at the Metro stop closest at around 10:30am, so we still had some time to wait. Luckily Burke found us an amazing spot to sit and watch the parade, it was literally the window sill of the American History Museum. Nice and shaded, even moderately cool compared to the rest of the area. So we had some lunch and water and waited for the parade to start. It was a pretty cool parade, lots of bands from the surrounding area came out and played (I felt so bad for them to be in full uniform when the sun is out and school colors are all black, navy blue, red, green, etc. and the uniforms were all long sleeved and pants.) Hopefully they were getting enough water to stay kind of cool. I even heard the piccolos of one band which was impressive because back when I was in parades I never knew if the audience ever heard us, since the rest of the band can be so loud. The parade also had some over sized balloons being tugged around which was interesting to watch. And of course there were veterans from all the armed forces. The part I thought was the most interesting though was the section of the parade devoted to Chinese immigrants and Chinatown, they had a float all to themselves and even had a group of girls following it doing a traditional dance. It was really beautiful to watch.
Then since we were sitting in front of the American History Museum Burke and I decided to go inside and see the exhibits. It was a pretty good museum, I definitely give them points on trying to relate things back to every day life, although sometimes it got a little corny. Overall though definitely a good museum, as all the Smithsonian's are. After that we headed back to the RAF to cool down and relax. We just did a little homework and hung out and we ordered a pizza for dinner. Then at about 6:45pm we headed out to meet up with our friend named John whose work was opening up the penthouse for employees and friends to watch fireworks.
Once we arrived we spent time hanging out with a group of people all from the RAF and just chatted because as everyone should know fireworks need to be set off in the dark. The shows started around 8:45pm, but these shows were really far away. People were getting upset because they didn't believe they were going to see good fireworks, a few even suggested leaving. I convinced the group to wait a few more minutes, and I am happy I did. About 5 minutes after my suggestion HUGE fireworks started going off about 2 blocks away from us, we probably had one of the best views. It was absolutely amazing, the show lasted about 45 minutes, but it felt like a lot longer. The show was done so well too because you were constantly expecting the finale because everything was so impressive. After that we returned to the RAF which was fun because even in the family neighborhoods people were shooting off their own smaller fireworks so we got to watch them as well. July 4th in Washington DC is an experience I won't soon forget.
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