Scottish Fourth of July, Year the Second

Last year, seeing as it would have been silly to fly home for the Fourth, I celebrated it with my friends in Edinburgh. There's nothing quite like celebrating one's country's independence on formerly enemy soil.

Yesterday, my parents' neighbors, the Scottish ex-pats, had a backyard cookout and invited us to come over and hang out. With six Scots, two Brits, and eight Americans, the odds were fairly well matched - my sister's flag-topped trifle had to compete with star-shaped shortbread, and the chicken shared grill space with salmon. There was no haggis, but then again, I'm not sure how one would attempt to grill a haggis. Between the themed bouquet and the baby's red-white-and-blue dress, however, the afternoon was festive, and our neighbor's parents, wrapping up their five-week holiday, seemed to enjoy themselves.

As the afternoon was winding down, I opened the cooler in search of a diet soda, and felt my jaw drop. A familiar logo graced a bottlecap before me, and I pulled a bottle of Strongbow from the cooler, not believing my eyes. "Where did you get this?" I asked, hoping that the cider, unlike the annual haggis, wasn't a suitcase import. After almost a year of turning to Woodchuck for my cider fix, I couldn't believe I was holding a bottle of my favorite British beverage.

Well, it hadn't been sneaked out of the country, but they had purchased it in Florida, where the beer laws are significantly friendlier than they are here. Needless to say, I drank it, missing the Pear Tree and Three Sisters, and Teviot's 95p half-pints.

After the "Green Card Day" celebrations (our neighbor's co-workers had jokingly removed his name from the time off list for the Fourth), Jen and I headed downtown for Thunder on the Mountain, Birmingham's annual fireworks extravaganza. We called a couple of friends en route, and managed to snag Anna, who was heading home to her apartment at the time. She just so happened to be located on a hill with a fantastic view of the city, so when the fireworks began, the three of us and her friend piled into her SUV, drove to a clear spot, cranked the synchronized patriotic music, and enjoyed the pretty lights. Best of all, we didn't get stuck trying to drive out of UAB with 10,000 of our closest friends. Freedom from insane traffic? I'll take it.