Happy Birthday America; My love letter to Philadelphia

I love this place. This is America. Macy's Day parade is a very white celebration with cameos of diversity, at least the way they broadcast it. Philly is a sweaty messy melting pot, no cameo needed. A crowd shot gives you everything. White next to black, next to old, next to Asian, next to everything. Our parade is step team followed by Falun Gong, followed by the Mummers, followed by a military color guard, followed by the Philadelphia Eagles mascot on a 4-wheeler. We celebrate for 11 days, we eat, we party in the smallest big city I've ever lived in. I love you Philly. I love you for your pretzels and pizza crusts strewn on the sidewalks. I love you for being so very real. For being what I love about being American, where I can't tell who is visiting and who lives here when they aren't traveling in groups of 20 with the same color t-shirt. As I prepare to live abroad, I will miss this about you. I will miss fitting in because absolutely nowhere in the world I've been is as beautifully diverse as our amazing country and Philly you are America. You are hipster (which can strike any creed), and African, and Black, and White, and Jewish, Hispanic, Asian, East Asian, Jersey, Irish Catholic. I can easily run into all these folks on my 10 minute walk to work, not to mention a 30 strong group of 6th graders visiting the Liberty Bell. For this one evening, we'll let how far we've left to go to improve on this great experiment go and just enjoy and celebrate what great thing we are.