Happy 50th post to me! As a celebration....I will tell you a story. Once upon a time, there was an awkward girl trying to make friends. Luckily, she met some really cool European guys, and became very happy. A little while later, after weeks of underlying envy, some girls decided to cozy up to said girl to get in with the European guys. To this day that awkward little girl is still friends with everyone, :) So maybe that's not 100% accurate....but I think we've joked about it enough that I don't remember how it really happened. (I apologizing for posting this about a month after it happened, but here it goes)
So a few months ago Marijn whatsapp-ed me and said he was going to be in NYC this year. Now I've been wanting to go back to NYC for a while and realized this would be a perfect opportunity. Sadly, Marijn didn't want me to meet him in NYC. Instead, he wanted to meet up in the Capital of America, Washington, D. C.! Turns out Becca wanted to come along too. #win Marijn tried to get two other girls to come along too....personally, I think he wanted a weekend surrounded by girls. Nevertheless, I'm grateful it was just the three of us who met up.
Normally, I am pretty good at making an epic list of to-do/see things when travelling. This time, I have been so overloaded with work for the past months, I hadn't really had time to look at anything in DC. I put together a few ideas and whatsapp-ed them the Marijn and Becca probably a day before I got there. It was a crazy work week. I'm going to be honest, the day I was leaving to DC, I was pretty unproductive with work. I couldn't concentrate well, because I was going to see Marijn and Becca in a few hours. I love those kids!!!
I got caught my flight after trying the EcoPark parking lot at the airport. There was no one at the entrance and a sign listing hourly parking options. I was super confused, as I was pretty sure that it was supposed to be a long-term parking area. I paused but decided to go with it. I parked, and normally there is a a shuttle that finds you or place to wait for the shuttle to pick you up. I did not see any thing, and so I started walking around and flagged down a shuttle. It was sketch. I got on my flight and was super excited the entire time. Pretty stoked. The plane right was pretty good. I was trying to read a book about gypsies, but it was terribly boring, which is never a good thing to discover at the beginning of a flight. I persevered, but it was mentally exhausting. When I landed, I went out to search for Becca, because we were flying in around the same time. We decided to meet at the metro stop outside of the DCA airport. It took me a few minutes of staring at the metro card machine to figure out how to get from one place to another, how much I needed to pay, and where to pay. Nevertheless, I succeed. I then went up to check how much time we had before the train before searching out Becca. We found each other easy peasy, and hopped on the metro to the hotel. Marijn had checked in earlier in the day, and was waiting outside the hotel on a bench for us! It was a happy reunion. When we got up to the room, we found salt and vinegar chips (i said i was going to be hungry after landing) and drinks (orange fanta for me, because that's my wild 'n crazy drink) We stayed up super late talking and catching up. After staying up super late....we decided to wake up super early the next morning, because we had lots to see!
We hopped on the metro in the morning and headed into town. We stopped at a cute looking retro-feeling diner for breakfast to get our energy up. We hit up the World War II memorial, which is always beautiful. I got my picture next to the Texas part. #beststate Then we headed to the Lincoln Memorial. it was still early in the morning and quickly getting ridiculously hot. Seriously hot. Like sweating profusely and becoming gross kind of hot. Then we walked to the Vietnam Memorial. On our way to the White House, I was realizing what a terrible shoe choice I made for this trip. There were blisters already forming on my feet and I could feel them. I should have brought my travel-approved
Tevas, which I normally always bring with me. However, I thought my cute black sandals were comfortable. #worstdecisionever We stopped off at CVS so Marijn and Becca could get some sunglasses, since it was so sunny, and I bought some
shoe inserts, another tried-and-true female life necessity.
After the White House, we went to cool down and have drinks on the rooftop terrace at Hotel Washington. I felt pretty glamorous, relaxing on a couch, and escaping the sun. After that short break, we headed out to our tour of the Capitol. It was pretty cool looking. We got a tour and had to wear headsets so we could hear the tour guide. One of Texas' monuments in the Capitol is a statue of Sam Houston. #obvi The art was pretty cool in the rotunda. My biggest issue is with all of America's history that could be chosen to display, one of the nine ginormous paintings is of The Baptism of Pocahontas. Why is this such a terrible painting to display along side of art depicting, Washington going to battle and the signing of the Declaration of Independence? Because it's one of the most depressing parts of American history! They could have shown art of "Pocahontas Greeting John Smith" or "Pocahontas becomes Friends with Settlers", but instead they show her in Europe after leaving her homeland and life she knew only to become white-washed and die from some disease. I'm pretty sure she's a perfect example of Stockholm Syndrome, as she was captured as a prisoner during war, and at the end of the war, she decided to stay with the Europeans. So yeah, I was not a happy camper by this display. We had lunch in the Capitol, and it was pretty good. Then we took the underground tunnel to the Library of Congress. #ilovelibraries
The library was beautiful. They have the horoscope signs on the ground. Becca and I are Pisces. Marijin didn't know what he was, so we had to look it up. There was a Gutenberg Bible. #wow and an exhibit of Thomas Jefferson's personal library collection. There was also a great exhibit on the Civil War, which was perfect, because Marijn was asking about the Civil War earlier. It turns out, in Dutch history classes, they don't really go into much detail about the Civil War. We took the exhibit nice and slow, expounding on the details of the Civil War. I'm kinda impressed by how much I remember from High School. It was also another reminder of why Becca is so cool; she's super clever. Friends with brains are great! After the Library, we went and laid down in the grass of the Capitol building....and fell asleep. We were all snoozing in the beautiful green grass, and it reminded me of how wonderful it is to just pause for a moment or two in the day and just *be*.
Now this below picture has a little bit of a story to it. I have a co-worker, who whenever I do something outside of work that sounds pretty fun he says something along the lines of "have fun with your boyfriend" or "are you going with your boyfriend". He knows full well that I do not have a boyfriend, and do not date because my work and I are having a very intense, co-dependent, and dysfunctional love affair. When he told me to "have fun with my boyfriend" this time, I said "Thanks. I will tell him you say that." and laughed. So this was the couple photo I took with Marijn. As we were walking, (I dont remember who brought it up, but I think it was Becca) Becca joked that if we really wanted to sell it, we could get a pic of us kissing in front of the Capitol. I laughed and said to Marijn "So how committed are you to this?" He responded, "I'm European. It doesn't really matter to me" lol. He's too funny.
We headed to the
Old Ebbitt Grill for dinner. On the walk over, I saw someone with the Deathly Hollows symbol tattooed on their calf. It was epic.I stalked the guy to get a good photo while he was walking in front of me. Back to the restaurant...the food was great. We had to wait for a bit at the bar, where I got a sugar boost with my yummy Shirley Temple. (why don't I drink this more???) Our waiter gave me the heebie jeebies, but we survived. We then headed to the other side of the White House, where I saw the
anti-war protester lady, who I read about a few months ago. It was pretty cool, since I felt like I knew her whole life story. We took a walk to get some ice cream, because ice cream is joy. Marijn doesn't like ice cream...or joy. :P haha.
We hit up the store for drinks on the way back to the hotel. I had to take a cold shower immediately. I felt super gross after being so hot and sweaty all day. bleh. I told Marijn and Becca how happy I was knowing that no matter how gross I became, they would still be my friend. lol. We stayed up late again, talking about everything...especially, since Marijn is a guy, and forgets to share important details of his life with us, so we have to dig into his life until we know everything. I did discover the truth about an incident that happened years ago. When I first met Marjin and the guys, we were in the library, i think we were planning a trip. Marijn was sitting across from me, and his foot hit mine. I wasn't thinking much of it, until it happened again, and he gave me a huge wink. I freaked out, because that's what I do when I think someone likes me. lol. I was really nervous, so I texted him later. It turns out....it was Jarno who texted me back, not Marijn. So Jarno made me believe that Marijn was into me. #sneakydutchman (the end of that story is that Marijn started dating my friend shortly after I had about a week of panicking)
The next day started off nicely. I woke up Marijn by jumping on his bed. lol. We headed down to the Arlington Cemetery to see JFK's grave, the grave of the unknown soldier. We went to the Pentagon 9/11 memorial, which was nice to just sit and enjoy the serenity of the memorial. After this, we went and checked out the Capital Bike share across DC. Can I tell you, I'm super out of shape, and I love leggings. I biked around in a skirt all day because of leggings. woohoo! We went biking after getting some yummy pizza for lunch. We biked to the holocaust museum. Biking on the road in a city with traffic is something I've never done. I biked around Tempe my last year of uni, but even then, I stayed on the sidewalk always. It was a little nerve-wracking, even with a Dutch bike leader. The Holocaust Museum was amazing. I highly recommend it. It's really cool, because they give you a little "passport" when you go in, where they tell you the story of a real Jewish person's life during WWII, and at each level (each level is a different time period of the war) you read about their life during that part of the war. I am a firm believer in learning from history, and although the Holocaust is one of the most horrific events that happened in modern history, it is something we must remember with a spirit of reverence and reflection in order to never let happen again. Another thing I learned is: when you are about to do something depressing, bring someone to give you hugs when you are feeling sad. It was a wonderful museum, especially since we went on the day that WWII started.
After the museum, we biked around the Tidal Basin, hitting up the Thomas Jefferson memorial, the FRD memorial (we did it backwards), and the MLK memorial, which was pretty cool. After the super long bike ride, we went to find food. We went to switch out bikes, and walk a little. We went to the next bike place only to see that there were no bikes. I was hangry, so we caught a taxi to this awesome dinner place....only to realize everyone else is eating there too. We then went to another place around the corner that Saryah recommended, but it was closed. We then went to another place only to see that it was ridiculously expensive. We then went to the 4th option next door for SUSHI!!!! Omg. It was delectable. I demolished my food, with a fruit smoothie. Food is great! We then went biking around DC to find the house that Marijn's sister used to live in. Then we decided to bike all the way back to the hotel. OMG. i am the gross fat kid. I was DYING on the bike ride back. My legs were jelly. We got back to the hotel miraculously. Marijn and I decided to take a swim. He then told me a secret that as soon as we got back to the room I told Becca and we both ranted at Marijn for a while about how we could have been together for two days and him not tell us. We stayed up super late talking about everything under the sun; there were confessions, future plans made, dreams shared, and lots of laughter. The best part is when I told Becca I wanted to go to Guatemala over Christmas, and Becca saying she would love to come along. #futuretrip We also decided that next year, we'll go to the German Christmas Markets and spend Christmas with Lukas and his family. (we did tell Lukas about these plans, no worries)
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| I'm touching a moon rock. #win |
Monday morning, we had a yummy breakfast overlooking the city from our hotel. Our waiter, who served us the previous morning was talking to us and was asking us where we were from. Becca said "Wisconsin"; I said "Texas"; Marijn said "The Netherlands". He laughed and said "now you are meeting in Washington DC! haha. How did you meet?" We replied, "In Spain". We really have seen bits of the world together. It's funny how it took us travelling to foreign countries for our paths cross and become intertwined. We went to the Smithsonian Air and Space museum. We did the group tour, and left after about an hour, because it was taking forever. It was interesting, but we handle ourselves pretty well on our own. We then biked over to the Union Station. It was evacuated when we got there. Something was going on, and when they finally let us back in, the sirens were still going off very loudly. It was pretty crazy. We got some Subway, and can I just say, the guy making my sandwich skimped on my pickles. It was a very sad moment. He refused to give me more pickles on my sandwich. Anyone who knows how I like my sandwiches and has heard my anti-Jimmy John's rant, knows how I feel about pickles on sandwiches. We then had to say goodbye to Marijn, who went on his way onto the bus back to NYC. Parting is such sweet sorrow. We invited him to come to Guatemala with us, but I think he's just going to wait for us to head to Germany next year.
After we dropped Marijn off, we took a taxi up the street and saw some lovely embassy houses, or at least we think they were embassy houses, because there were random country flags and gates around buildings. We went up to the National Cathedral. Kinda weird, there was so much historical stuff there that it felt more like a American Museum than a church. Weird. There were also state flags hanging around the place. Weird. But cool to see a Texas flag.
We went back to the hotel to get our luggage and take the metro to the airport. We had time, and decided to spend some time chatting over some yummy Starbucks, with Becca's Starbucks gift card #win It was great. Becca is AWESOME. I really have some of the most amazing friends in the world. Literally, the *world*.
I was so grateful for that trip and time to get away from the stressful times at work. I'm grateful that Marijn was travelling over Labor Day weekend, so I could get away for three days. I am grateful for the time where I can relax and be myself around people I love. I can't wait to see where our next adventures take us.
