Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Proper Fireworks!
Last night, for the first time in 7 years, I got to see a proper fireworks display on the 4th of July. For many years of my childhood, my family always saw the fireworks in Manteo, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and these occasions became the standard against which I measure all other 4th of Julys. Last night, I sat on the grassy area behind the art museum in Raleigh, and watched the fireworks explode over the trees.
Seven years ago, I was in the final weeks of my semester abroad, and the 4th of July marked the first day of my trip to Peru. I spent most of the afternoon that day in Arica, the furthest north city in Chile, waiting for the rest of the group I would be traveling with to arrive. Though for the wrong country, I took a very patriotic picture: Chilean flag at the top of a cliff the Chilean army had to scale to take back the land from Peru, behind a statue of Bernardo O'Higgins, liberator of Chile.* The flag colors were still red, white, and blue.
Two years after that, I spent my 4th of July in Japan, and on my way home from work, took a picture of some beautiful red roses above some other white flower, all above a blue hydrangea bush, growing in a little corner between my apartment building and the house next door.
Alas, I recall no particularly patriotic pictures from my summer in China, nor one from my ever-so-brief residence in Taiwan last summer. But this year I got to see fireworks, so things are getting back on track.
(*I was going to scan the picture and post it, but it appears that I haven't completely finished moving in enough to be able to find it, even though I've been in my apartment for 9 months. I'll try to find it later.)
Last night, for the first time in 7 years, I got to see a proper fireworks display on the 4th of July. For many years of my childhood, my family always saw the fireworks in Manteo, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and these occasions became the standard against which I measure all other 4th of Julys. Last night, I sat on the grassy area behind the art museum in Raleigh, and watched the fireworks explode over the trees.
Seven years ago, I was in the final weeks of my semester abroad, and the 4th of July marked the first day of my trip to Peru. I spent most of the afternoon that day in Arica, the furthest north city in Chile, waiting for the rest of the group I would be traveling with to arrive. Though for the wrong country, I took a very patriotic picture: Chilean flag at the top of a cliff the Chilean army had to scale to take back the land from Peru, behind a statue of Bernardo O'Higgins, liberator of Chile.* The flag colors were still red, white, and blue.
Two years after that, I spent my 4th of July in Japan, and on my way home from work, took a picture of some beautiful red roses above some other white flower, all above a blue hydrangea bush, growing in a little corner between my apartment building and the house next door.
Alas, I recall no particularly patriotic pictures from my summer in China, nor one from my ever-so-brief residence in Taiwan last summer. But this year I got to see fireworks, so things are getting back on track.
(*I was going to scan the picture and post it, but it appears that I haven't completely finished moving in enough to be able to find it, even though I've been in my apartment for 9 months. I'll try to find it later.)
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I've always been amused by the fact that the national liberator of Chile is named "Bernardo O'Higgins".
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