On the 4th of July we went to Long Beach (about 20 minutes drive on the freeway) to the Queen Mary (ex luxury trans-atlantic ship, WWII troup ship) which is now a tourist attraction and hotel. It was one of the biggest and fastest cruise ships - larger than the Titanic!

We spent the afternoon walking all over it and reading about it's interesting history, including time as a troup ship taking soldiers from Sydney to Europe/Africa during WWII.

We also walked, and crawled, though a Russian submarine which is berthed next to it. The sub had an interesting commentary spoken by a guy putting on a fake Russian accent - quite ammusing, but being in the sub was really amazing - especially how small it was.

In the evening we watched fireworks from the ship - the weather was warm and so we sat on the deck and waited for the "big ones". Throughout the evening we could see fireworks going off up and down the river which we think were either personal or community groups - some as big as the official "Long Beach Fireworks" but not as long or impressive.

The official fireworks were just amazing - being close to the ship they looked huge, and went for over 20min. There were people everywhere - it reminded us of Sydney New Years fireworks, from what we've seen on TV. Afterwards (9.30pm?) we left the ship and walked along the river to a Carnival which was going on. Not finding anything much to look at we decided we would go home - but we possibly should have waited.

It took over an hour to get home. Just getting out of the car park took so long that Rob turned off the car engine at times until the line moved. But it was a great day and an excellent way to experience our first Fourth of July.