Happy Birthday America!
Americans are preparing for a big holiday tomorrow with the arrival of the Fourth of July. Red, white and blue to the extreme. Stars and stripes hanging everywhere, a lot of colorful parades and small town festivals. Usually, I stay at home in the Washington, DC area and watch the fireworks explode over the Washington Monument and Capitol from the comfort of my apartment balcony. However, this year we're lucky because the holiday falls on Friday, my work closes today at 2 p.m., and we're treated to a long weekend. I'll travel to our wilderness home in Fredricksburg, Virginia and try to attend the festivities tomorrow in the Old Town area. We're having a crushing heatwave here in Virginia, temps today around +35 C, but I'll do my best to suffer in the heat and photograph the local festival to show you how Americans typically celebrate their nation's birthday. It involves a lot hamburgers and hot dogs, beer, family time and guess what? FLAGS!! :))
To define America in a few words is impossible for me. I can only say I love my country, its people and the principles upon which it was founded. Yes, this is a textbook quote and to try to explain American patriotism seems impossible to a foreign audience. I've tried here on LiveJournal and can never adequately express it, or my Russian audience can't relate to the sentiment. Many readers feel our patriotism is unauthentic or a product of indoctrination, but it's not the truth. I think you must live here, absorb the diverse beauty of the nation, from its landscapes to people, to fully appreciate the country and the spirit of its people. Politically, America sometimes feels like two nations, not one. Yet on the human front, I still believe "American" is a cohesive term. A feeling that people genuinely care about and respect others, that you can come from anywhere in the world, work hard, assimilate into our society and be considered "American" in the same manner as a person born here. There are not many nations on the globe where this is possible.
Happy Birthday America! I've traveled to over 30 countries, yet there's no other place I wish to call home.