Yesterday was July 4th, a holiday I have always liked a lot but didn’t used to have that much meaning for me.  I wasn’t a citizen of this country until 3 years ago.  Don’t worry.  I was a citizen of another country and had been here more than long enough to change my citizenship, but kinda never did.  Then, when Obama ran for president I decided it was time to cast a vote and of course for that, I’d have to become a citizen.  And thus it was that on February 8, 2008, me and the rest of the Dominican Republic stood in a room and took our oath of citizenship.  It meant a lot to me.  I might have even teared up a little bit in the process.

After that I suddenly felt like I was part of something.  Here I always was outside of everyone, when they would talk about voting and whatnot.  Now I could vote and it felt very good.  It also felt very good to be able to cheer for America in the Olympics.  I liked cheering for Aquaman when he won all his medals.  When he out touched that Serbian guy, I was out at dinner with some friends and they wouldn’t stop commenting on me looking at the big TV in the restaurant.  Yes, I wanted Phelps to win, but it was my first Olympics when I could cheer for America and I wanted to as much as possible.

Now on the subject of July 4.  It had always been an immensely pleasant mid summer holiday that means three days off and fireworks.  However, for the last three July 4’s I’ve had a different feeling about it like here I am participating, here I am a part of this.  People might discount it but being a part of something is very important in life.

July 4 brings out a lot of different types of people, predictably from different parts of the world.  See:

Watching fireworks anywhere is a chaotic experience given the number of people, but watching them in Boston, which is considered the nation’s oldest fireworks display is kind of insanity.  First, the family and I took our post in the middle of a bridge on the Charles and I got this shot:

Yeah, it isn’t too bad of a shot and I could have gotten an evenings worth of “city vista fireworks” type of shots and been quite happy with those.  Then, the fireworks stopped.  Then there was nothing.  Then I had to go to the bathroom.  And then this happened:

No, that is not me watching the fireworks, but I wanted to get the human element in there.  Then I started looking at the photos and they started to look kind of weird and otherworldly to me like something out of a space telescope, like looking into other worlds.  Other more exotic worlds.  What do you think:

When I was watching the fireworks, I thought “who doesn’t like fireworks.”  I obviously do.