July 4th in DC

July 2015

We did it! What blogs and DC area news articles brandished as the great challenge of the capitol, we found a spot at the National Mall to watch the DC 4th of July fireworks! But actually, the hyperbole was insane.

Let’s take a few steps back. Seeing the fireworks in DC on the 4th of July has been on my bucket list from the beginning – as it’s a very important holiday for me – so it was big on my to-do list for this summer. Every blog post and article on the best places to view the fireworks made a (bold and underlined) point that the National Mall would be packed with people, so show up early if you want a good spot (gates open at 10am, wink wink) and bring food and drinks to sustain yourself.

Fireworks go off at 9. PM. So wait, you want me to camp out at the National Mall for 11 hours to see 10 minutes of fireworks? Ha! Nooo, I don’t think so…

My boyfriend and I decided to take the risk and spend our (rainy) afternoon at Pie Fest at the Satellite Room instead. $15 for a personal pizza, unlimited pie and a free drink sounds pretty good to me. Well, ehhh. Wasn’t exactly the results.

There were personal pizzas, but you had to wait in line half an hour to get two tiny slices. It was unlimited, if you wanted to get back in line. There was unlimited pie, which they had to go out and buy more of with so many people there. The two signature drinks of the event – a lemonade mixture and pink pie punch – were both very good. And of course their marketing strategy worked, because we bought more appetizers and drinks while we were there – the pizza line was not worth it. Overall, I would rank it a 6 out of 10 experience and it kept us out of the rain.

Once the event was over we made our trek to the National Mall to face the dreaded and monstrous crowds to find a spot to sit. Again, hyperbole was the name of the day. We got there around 7 and the place was practically empty. There were a ton of great spots right by the monument, one of which we promptly occupied. Even two hours was too long to sit there – go a half hour to an hour before and you’ll be perfectly fine.

The fireworks, naturally, were a beautiful and mystifying backdrop to the monument, even with Taylor Swift playing in the background.