Feliz Cumpleaños America!!!

For past 8 years, my 4th of July has consisted of me working an 8 hour shift which may have included picking up tons and tons of garbage and dealing with angry patrons who complain theres no room on the beach, parking costs too much, theres no indoor showers, too many mosquitos, or that the bathrooms are filthy (10 minutes after we cleaned them)

This year was a bit different (gracias a dios!)  I continued this years trend of leisure, fun and friends.

As Americans 4th of July means only a few things. It may mean a really crappy shift at work, but it also means BBQs, family, friends and fireworks. So us americanas did the best we could to recreate a typical American Independence day, but the BBQ became in issue (and forget fireworks, we've had enough after Fallas!)
1) Where do we get a BBQ?
2) Are there BBQs to use in the parks already?
3) Where can we BBQ
4) If we were to buy a bbq, how do we transport that, with the food.

Well, after much debate and much research, we learned that there is no where in Valencia with BBQs ready for you to use. Also, we learned that BBQing is illegal in the parks! We also learned that the "south americans" always cook in the parks, so i say, well now the north americans want to also! It was settled: next we found where to buy BBQs, but decided not to buy one because we only will be here a few more weeks: but instead we got a DISPOSABLE BBQ! One time use! Who knew??? Ready in 20 minutes to cook your food then you toss it. Basically, it was a tin pan with coal and a cheap rack. but it did the trick for 6 euros.

So we transported our metal tin called a bbq along with the food we slaved over for 2 days, and we met up with some great people! Of course the Moreno Prospers joined us, Amber and company, and horray- francesco and friend! I was super happy to see Francesco =) We had a large happy group of about 15 people again from all over: 6 Americans,  5 Spaniards, 1 Italian, 1 Argentinean, 1 Brit, 1 Austrian and 1 Bolivian.

We found a hiding spot in the park, somewhat secluded to have our illegal BBQ (just in case we cooked the food before hand and used the grill to just heat it up). We even had some decorations to set the mood! and we sat around for 5 hours on our picnic blankets exchanging languages, phrases, vocabulary, stories and laughs.

We also enjoyed great cuisine:
Hamburgers, hot dogs, sausages, black bean burgers (hell yes), potato salad, cole slaw, broccoli salad, brownies, jell-o shots ( red white and blue- and so fun to teach europeans the art of taking a jello shot), tinto de verano, and then marshmellows melted over a lighter....

After a short siesta, we met back up and headed down to the American Bar ready to re celebrate!

In the end, i vote this to be the best 4th of July ever!
(the europeans may have been let down however, that there were no aliens to battle like in the movies)