Fourth o'July

My first Fourth of July in the city was pretty good....except for the rain that barred me from going to Coney Island and watching the hot dog eating contest. I guess I could've still made the trek, but it's rain out here is not cool and refreshing. It's probably the exact opposite--hot and muggy and pretty much awful. So Mark, Maria and I played Settler's of Catan, which is pretty much the best game out there, next to Nerts and MadGab.

Maria was clearly sitting in the Winner's Chair because after totally creaming us in the first one she also went on to beat us in the we-have-to-play-again-to-prove-we're-not-awful second game.
Then it was off to a BBQ. Yes, a BBQ in the city. A girl in my ward who live just a few blocks up on 146th has an apartment on the first floor that includes a small backyard area. So we had a hot dogs from the grill, chips, fruit and goodies. The rain that had let up for the food-eating started up again just as we were getting ready to leave for the fireworks. Good thing I brought my umbrella.

We decided to watch the fireworks from Brooklyn. There was probably about fifteen us. We hopped onto the 1, transferred to the 3 at 96th street and rode it to the first stop, Clark Street, in Brooklyn.

It was still raining when we got out of the subway but thankfully not too hard. More of just a light sprinkle. There were tons of people at the Promenade. And it's not like watching fireworks in Salt Lake where people bring blankets and chairs and it's sort of relaxing. There's too many people for that so we all just stand. I won't complain about that or the rain because it was totally awesome and well worth it. Here are a few pictures.



The pictures don't really do it justice--they were AWESOME! And it went on for thirty minutes!! The rain was pretty much a moot point because, being a lover of fireworks, I was basically in nirvana. And the crowd was just as excited as me; we all clapped and oohed and aahed. Sometimes we would even cheer, and it was like all my inner excitement was being manifest in the people around me. What was really cool was watching the reflections of the fireworks in the buildings in Manhattan and all the smoke that eventually blocked the buildings as the fireworks went on. So did I mention that I totally loved it?!



The picture on the left is to show the rain on my shirt, and the non-flash one on the right is to show the Manhattan skyline from where we watched in Brooklyn. For how much I loved it I feel I must also profess my love for sitting on my Grandma's porch in Moroni, Utah and watching fireworks; I got a little nostalgic for it and the firemen-served breakfast while I was standing in the crowd of mostly strangers watching the fireworks

The subway ride home was a little crazy. We even waited a little while before leaving so to miss some of the crowd. But the subway entrance was kinda small and has an elevator that takes riders from the turnstiles to the trains. Policemen were there to help facilitate it all and it was actually quite easy. But then the train started going local, then express after we finally reach Times Square and then we stopped for what seemed like twenty minutes...while three (!) local 1 trains passed us. The train was completely crowded by this point, but since we had gotten on in Brooklyn we thankfully had seats. The train finally started moving again, and this is one of the reason why I love New York, we all started clapping and cheering and someone yelled out "Happy Birthday America!"