July 4th.

I’m a sucker for pretty much any public holiday, but especially ones that involve fireworks and birthdays for entire countries. This July 4th was my first one ever, and boy did I get into the American spirit..(hint, there was a flag on my face..). 

It’s safe to say that July 4th was something I’d been looking forward to for a fair while. It’s the American holiday, isn’t it? It’s the birthday of the USA, it’s pretty much a giant, country-wide birthday party. You see it in all the films, you read books where July 4th is painted as this massive..thing.

I spent my first July 4th in Amherst MA with my current room-mate Ellen and my best friend from home Bekki. We opted to head to the UMass Amherst celebrations, which involved various pie-eating contests, face painting and all the fireworks known to man. We were greeted with American-colored garlands, and mine is now proudly hanging on the door of my shoe cupboard.

My face had the most epic glitzy, sparkly American flag painted on it for the grand total of $5. Quite honestly, that was the best $5 I’ve spent for a while. The face-painting lady didn’t judge me for being 21 (nearly 22) and getting my cheek glammed up, or for squealing excitedly when she asked if I would like some glitter and a gem. What a woman.

Other good things included watching a kid get a blueberry stuck up his nose when he shoved his face into it in the pie-eating contest. In fact, the pie-eating contest in general was pretty epic. The fireworks were just something else. They went on for about 30 minutes, but they were just mesmerizing. I’ve not seen fireworks properly since I was about 20 at Bonfire night in Southampton, so I was a pretty happy bunny.

Happy (belated) birthday, America…