4th of July 🇺🇸

I’m reflecting on the 4th of July months after the fact because I had a more interesting 4th of July this year than any other year! I finally went down to the National Mall to see the fireworks for the first time ever. I’ve never had the desire to see fireworks in D.C. because I’ve felt that it would be too chaotic and too much of a hassle. This year I went by myself and then synced up with a friend at the last minute; it turned out better than expected. I got to see the fireworks at a nice location on the Mall and there were some really impressive and colorful explosions. This was probably the first time I’ve seen fireworks since the early 2000s so it was a treat for me. Will I go see fireworks again next year? Probably not because of the overcrowdedness. I would rather stay at home and sleep or do my own thing, which is what I’ve done historically.

There was one thing however that happened quite unexpectedly and serendipitously. Because of the overcrowding (I would guess ~500K were on the Mall that night), my friend and I decided to sit on a bench and wait for the crowd to die down before hopping on the Metro. We also had to walk a couple of blocks to the Metro stop, so we passed by the Freedom Plaza area. As we walked by, CNN was hosting its 4th of July special event, so we walked right into a block party. They brought on stage Jeremih (hip-hop artist), who’s music I used to listen to a lot coming out of college. I listened to a ton of his music for years and he was pretty popular back in the 2010s. It was a total surprise that Jeremih was performing for the block party and I ended up staying for his whole performance. That was definitely awesome and I felt pretty special and fortunate to randomly walk right into a concert. Jeremih has always had good music, so I felt very good about the whole experience!