4th of July 1976

 

From my journal - my first trip to Europe when I was 17. I went with a group of about 20 high school students from Oregon and Washington lead by a high school teacher named Jerry.

July 4, 1976 - 33 years ago

"It was really rather embarrassing to wake up this morning and not remember that today was the BICENTENNIAL. I forgot...Jerry said all the stores were closed so he didn't know what we'd do for our picnic. But he asked around and found out that Geneva was having a huge bash for all the Americans here (the biggest outside of the U.S.). So we took a bus to go to that. And boy was it American. The American Ambassador to Switzerland was there - did he ever speak terrible French! A Black woman sang the national anthem. There was a hot-dog skiing exposition, and eight hand-gliders landed...I had a very good hamburger, ice cream, and cotton candy (isn't that American). There were millions of food stalls all over the place selling American food - french fries and beer, and watermelon...I also listened to a jazz band from California and walked to "Independence Hall" and saw a good exposition of American history...The fireworks were SPECTACULAR! Only 15 minutes long but they were continuous and there were 10 bursting at the same time. The sky was so bright you could see just like it was day. They had ones that whistled, and ones that exploded with a bright white flash, and huge flowers ones, and ones that exploded three different times, and all sorts of rocket types...I was surprised how many Swiss showed up to attended and so did a lot of "blue jean" types. A group of girls on the bus back to the hotel started singing every American song they could think of from "God Bless America" to "Row Row Row Your Boat"."