4th of July festivities

This has been a great weekend! It was a tough decision, whether to go to Maine, Mass, or stay, but I'm not disappointed in my decision. Philadelphia had a crazy $2 million dollar budget for 4th of July festivities, so I spent most of the weekend in the city. Saturday Chinatown had a block party with lots of demonstrations and musical performances, and then I went to Penn's Landing (the waterfront) to see a free show by the Philly Orchestra. Afterward was a great fireworks performance synchronized to music which was great as well. The only bad parts were having people stand in front of me for the concert, and having to wait an hour and 20 minutes for the bus back home, even though they are supposed to run every 45 mins. I don't understand how Philly can have the biggest 4th of July celebration with tens of thousands coming into the city, and have its public transportation system running at half capacity. That was the worst. I couldn't even take my normal bus home, I had to take one that dropped me off half a mile away.


Sunday morning I went into the city to watch the parade. It was funny, I was walking down Market Street (the main drag) and this lady yells out "Hey stranger!" It was a woman I had met on the bus the day before, I had talked with her and her husband about getting around Philly since they were from West Virginia. It turns out their daughter was playing in the parade, but I thought it was kind of random that they would randomly recognize me walking down the street.

The parade was a lot of fun. I enjoyed seeing the different costumes and dance performances from around the world. The only bummer was of course there were people protesting the imprisonment of someone right across the street, but once the bands started you couldn’t really hear them anymore. I sat on top of this wall and had a great seat.

Afterward I took the trolley to the Ben Franklin Parkway, which is this big street modeled after the Champs-Elysees in Paris. It leads up to the art museum (think the Rocky steps). There were tons of food vendors and musical performances and demonstrations. Two things that I was pleased to see were free water bottles and other drinks by Wawa (a convenience store chain), and the fire department opened up a fire hydrant and using a fire truck to spray a mist. It was 95 degrees that day so I’m glad they were taking heat exhaustion into consideration. I walked around to all the booths and got as much free stuff as I could (including 5 bottled drinks, haha). I eventually found a great spot under a tree on some grass by the main stage where I sat for two hours, just relaxing. Unfortunately, people started to arrive to get ready for the main concert, and the people who sat next to me were quite the characters. And they literally sat right next to me, I had to move my bag because they were sitting on it. After 15 minutes two of them had started on their 3rd cigarette, and I thought to myself “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to handle this for the next 8 hours.” I stood up to lean against the tree and face the other direction and get some fresh air, and 20 minutes later these people literally laid a blanket at my feet while I was standing against the tree. I couldn’t believe it! That’s when I just left, which is too bad because it was the best spot to watch the concert, and I had already been there for 2.5 hours. I ended up walking around and finding a seat on the dirt to the side of the stage. Again, it seemed like I couldn’t break away from the smokers. It’s amazing how many people still smoke even with all the knowledge we have today about how bad it is for you.

It all worked out for the best though, because a big family ending up sitting behind me. At one point one of the moms said “You really should put a hat on, you’re so fair!” We got to talking, and eventually they invited me to sit on their blanket with them. I loved it, they were so nice. The two sisters also grew up in Portugal so it was really interesting to hear about their youth. The funny part was that I couldn’t even tell that they were foreigners until they told me, they had almost no accent. The sisters had all their sons there, and one mom said “I’ve just always wanted a girl and all we have are these teenage boys, we’re adopting you for the night.” They went and got me food which I tried refusing several times but one of the sons said “It’s a losing battle, you’ll find that out soon enough.” We talked about the college process, what it was like for me to grow up in Maine, how much they hate communism, all sorts of stuff. It made the evening so much nicer to have someone to talk to.

The concerts were great (and not just because they were free). This band called Green River Ordinance played. I had never heard of them, but they were good. Then The Roots played, who are a band from Philly and are the band for the Late Night Show. I thought it was a great decision to have them play because they were family friendly but all ages were enjoying themselves. I guess their music could be described as funk-infused hip hop, with a guy rapping and a brass section and drums behind him. The main headliner of the night though was The Goo Goo Dolls, which I was sooooo excited about. They are a favorite, and they sounded good. I’ve been to 50+ concerts and know it can be a little of a drag if they don’t have everything sounding just right, but this was a great concert in terms of having the vocals, drums, guitars, and everything balanced. Not only that, these guys are getting old, and they definitely look old, but they don’t sound old yet.

I had to leave immediately after the concert ended which was a bummer because I couldn’t stay and enjoy the fireworks (even though my new friends were insisting that they drove me home!). Again, the city of Philadelphia messed up with public transportation. I had to book it to find the train station and make sure I got on the last train home. I was actually glad I left before the fireworks started though (even though I kinda saw them on my walk back), because when I woke up the next morning I heard that there had been a violent flash mob right down the street I had been walking 20 minutes after I had been on it.

We had Monday off, which I spent all day puttering and cleaning. I was pretty tired after staying out so late both nights (1am and 2am). This week is short for us, but we have 16 hours of lab and 12 hours of lecture crammed into 3 days. I’m sure I’m going to be tired by the time Friday rolls around.