The Departure

It was 6 am when my alarm clock woke me up on a Saturday morning. I had been looking forward to this trip ever since we started planning for it a few weeks prior, but I hadn't woken up that early in a long time and staying up late did not help the situation. Nevertheless, I dragged myself out of bed and got ready. It was 6:30 when my friend arrived to pick me up. We put my luggage (which consisted of a duffle bag and a shoulder bag) in the trunk and set off to pick up our other two friends before leaving for Washington, D.C. We had loaded up on snacks for the road and energy drinks the night before which saved us a lot of time. This was my first trip to D.C., but I doubt it will be my last.

The Journey

Photo credit: Matthew Gordon

It was roughly a 10 hour drive from Clarksville, TN to Washington D.C. and the GPS took us to the eastern most tip of TN before having us drive up into Virginia. I stared out of the window for most of the trip and my friends and I played a variation of 20 Questions in an attempt to keep the driver awake. We learned probably a little too much about each other that day. As we drove farther east I began to notice subtle differences in the landscape. We began gaining altitude as we scaled mountain roads. Somewhere in East TN it began to mist and become hazy. It looked like something out of a horror movie and I just figured Hurricane Matthew (no relation) was to blame. Luckily there were rest stops every 50 miles or so. Flatlands soon turned into mountains that were higher than the low clouds that plagued us the entire time we were in Virginia. At every rest stop I could also notice that the temperature was dropping so I soon wished I had my jacket on instead of packing it even though I was wearing a long sleeved shirt. We didn't hit much traffic which saved a little bit of time. We eventually had to change drivers because the main driver had driven about 10 hours and it was understandable that she was a little tired. The daylight began to fade into night and that is one way I knew that we were almost there. Then it happened, we arrived.

The First Night

As soon as we got into the city, I knew it was a lot bigger than I was used to and even though I had gone to London and Paris before it was different somehow. We quickly made our way to the Quality Inn we were staying at to freshen up enough to go back out. The only plans we made for the night we got there was to find a place to eat so that is what we did. We tried to find a place that was close enough to drive to because we hadn't gotten our metro rail passes yet so we eventually settled on a place called BJ's. It was a respectable establishment which seemed to ring true for most of the restaurants we went to in D.C.. We ate, drank, and laughed and by the time we left we were all exhausted from the drive so we retired to our rooms for the night.

The second day

We made very vague plans the night before just so we had some idea of what we were going to do because there are too many things to do in a city like D.C. and we didn't have any time to waste. It was a beautiful sunny day and the high temperature was going to be 63 degrees. First, we went to my favorite thing about any big city: the trains. I don't what it is about riding in a train or subway but I find it both relaxing and thrilling.

Photo Credit: Matthew Gordon

We got on the train and headed to the Smithsonian National Zoo which was free. The tradeoff for being free was that a lot of the animals were missing. We saw some elephants, emu, flamingos, and small mammals but overall I was not very impressed. I think the zoo is really a place for children because I remember enjoying the zoo as a kid but as an adult it just seemed kinda boring. That shouldn't discourage you from trying it, though because it was huge and if we had looked long enough we probably would have found something cool.

After the zoo we stopped by a sports bar for lunch which turned out better than I thought it would be. We all felt a lot better after we ate lunch so we made the trip to Madam Tussaud's Wax Museum. I had never been to a wax museum before so at first i found it to be a little creepy how lifelike they looked but then found it fascinating.

The third day

On Monday we made our way to Pennsylvania Avenue to look as the presidents house a.k.a. the White House. Tyson's Corner was unlike a lot of the other stop in that it came to life as soon as you stepped off of the train platform.

Something that I learned about inner city pigeons is that they are used to tourists because I tried to scare them but all they would do is waddle away. When the White House came into clear view we also saw the large crowd of tourists that was mashed against the gate that kept you from touching the fence of the White House. As we devised a strategy to get through the tourists a young women asked us about the upcoming presidential election and asked if we would answer some questions on camera for her schools television program but we all politely declined. That is probably the one thing I regretted on this trip. If you ever have an opportunity to voice your opinion to anyone else but yourself you should always take it. We got a couple good shots in front of the White House but other tourists kept getting in the way.

Photo Credit: Matthew Gordon

After the White House, we made our way around to the Washington Memorial and the new Smithsonian African American History Museum (both were a lot more impressive in person).

Photo Credit: Matthew Gordon

Photo Credit: Matthew Gordon

After we got all of our photos, we checked out the street vendors and bought some souvenirs. Then we made our way back to The Hamilton which is an upscale hotel and restaurant. After a rich lunch (literally) we made our way to the nearest Metro station which took us through a wide alley between two tall buildings, it was very peaceful because there was no one else there. This lead to a large plaza.

Photo Credit: Matthew Gordon

We headed back to our hotel so we could freshen up before going somewhere truly remarkable. Dupont Circle was by far my favorite part of Washington D.C.. The buildings are tall and old and the streets are lined with restaurants and shops. We had a hard time finding a place just to have a drink because the second presidential debate was that night and every place with a tv was full. We eventually found this restaurant that was mostly empty where we had a great waiter named Trevor. He put up with our shenanigans and gave us great service and somehow the conversation of tips came up and he told us that minimum wage there was like $11 and we were all floored. But that explains why everything was more expensive than we were used to. After we left the restaurant, we tried to make it back to the subway before it closed at Midnight and were on the last train out luckily. We were all exhausted and had to get up early the next day to return home.

The drive back down seemed a lot shorter than the trip there but that could just be because we gained the hour that we had lost. I cannot wait to go back to Washington, D.C. one day and we are already planning our next trip.