What It's Like to Celebrate the 4th of July in Another Country

It's a triumphant display of spirited, star-spangled, passionate, summertime, All-American honourfest! Beware travellers to our great nation as it will look like a Crayola factory exploded red, white, and blue over every citizen in this beautiful country. It's a site to behold! Firework displays light up the skies at night entertaining all the families and drunkies alike. 

During the day, you'd be hard fought to find a playlist that didn't include some sort of song referencing America, BBQ food so delicious just thinking about it makes your mouth water, pool parties, beach going, and all types of people getting star-spangled schmammered enjoying their freedom ('Murica!). At the very least, its a day to relax with friends and family (and if you're lucky, get the day off!). It's the holiday of all the summer holidays! 

But what happens when you find yourself in another country on this holiday? It isn't like Christmas or New Years. NOBODY outside of the U.S. celebrates the 4th (Does England have a sad memorial day for when they lost the colonies?). So what do you do? Prance around in an American flag t-shirt, drinking overpriced PBR and screaming "America! F*** YEA!!"? Chances are, you'd probably get smacked relatively quickly. Celebrating your culture isn't a crime, but people let's remember to be respectful of whatever country you're in. 

In Australia, its the dead of winter. Heaps of fun right? WRONG! You can't exactly prance around in a bikini, having a BBQ, in like 5 Celsius weather. So what do you do when you want to celebrate a day you've gone your whole life celebrating? IMPROVISE!! 

At first, I didn't really want to do anything for the 4th. Not because I didn't feel like I needed to celebrate my home country but mainly because I worked a lot during the week and was way too lazy to cook and party on the 4th. But naturally, my 'Murica kicked in and heck yes I wanted to celebrate my countries freedom! I thought we might be able to still BBQ, but unfortunately, it started raining, so it ended up just an inside gathering.

What does one eat celebrating the 4th in another country? This one can be quite hard. I'm sure if I had actually put more than an 18-hour effort into the party, I could have rounded up all the tasty fixings typically prepared at my 4th shindigs. Luckily, there are a lot of similarities between Aussie and American foods. We ended up making Juicy Lucy Burgers (my special award-winning recipe), hot dogs, ranch (from scratch as the bottles are crap here), and Kool-Aid! All the beverages of the adult variety were American as well. I almost cried buying a 6 pack of Coors Light at the Bottle-O from AUD 20... I could buy a slab for that back home. 

Outside of the fact that I was in another country, there wasn't a massive difference in the celebration. Most years I spent with friends just enjoying life. That's exactly what was done on that day! Puppy got heaps of attention, I got to cook (LOVE IT!), and we got to hang out with good friends. It was very similar to Australia ('Straya) Day just minus the sun and warmth! 

$5 Bottomless Brunch Champagne = Freedom

On a random side note, I was a little nervous about going out that night. We did wear red, white, and blue but nothing too flashy. Most people thought I was Canadian until they realised it was July 4th and then quickly understood I was American. It actually wasn't scary at all. I was mildly shocked as a lot of people wanted to talk to us (we even got some drinks bought for us! Score 1 for America!). Overall, fantastic 4th of July!

Have you ever celebrated the 4th away from the US? What was your experience like? Let me know in the comments below! 

And until next time...

Stay Curious!