Since I only work half days on Fridays, I was able to leave Mercerburg around 1230 in the afternoon. After having lunch at Lizzy, the place that has the superman ice cream, Heinrich and I were both on our way to the capital. He had made plans to visit his friend Bobby, while I had made plans to stay with Alie Friday and Saturday. After getting to Alie's house and chatting it up in her kitchen for about two hours, Alie, her mother, and myself traveled to Bethesda to grab some dinner. We ate at this really neat Mexican restaurant, drank a couple Corona's and had steak and chicken faijtas for dinner. Even though we were all three stuffed from the wonderful food, we decided to walk around Bethesda a little and venture to a cupcake place down the road. For a little pre birthday celebration, they bought me some amazing lemon favored cupcakes. Even though at the store I knew the cupcakes were going to fabulous, we could not even wait more then ten minutes before opening the package at home. Alie, her dad, and mom sang to me, while I blew out my single candle off my cupcake. Laughs were shared and it was a great way to start out my adventures in Washington.
Saturday was a early day for Alie and myself as we had made plans to go site seeing all day in Washington. We did not know exactly what we were going to do when we got there, but we knew that we wanted to spend the day going to museums and the national monuments. We first started out at the National History Museum where we learned about the ocean, mammals, rocks, minerals, and butterflies. We even got to go into a butterfly exhibit and be face to face with many different types of butterfly species. After about an hour and a half at the National History museum we ventured across the street to the Air and Space Museum. There we saw tons of planes and air crafts and even went to the planetarium to learn about black holes. Our last museum stop for the day was the National Art Gallery. We did not spend a ton of time there, but I saw actual paintings by Monte and Vincent Van Gogh. It was so incredible to be standing right in front of some of those historical paintings!
After going to three museums, we decided it was time to walk around the mall and see some of the monuments that were close to us. Around 4:30 Alie and I were able to meet up with another Adpi, Rebehak and we all three walked around together catching up on the last three months after college. We saw the Nation's Capital, The Washington Monument, The World War II Monument, the Korean Monument, the Lincoln Monument, and from a distance the Jefferson Monument. Even though I had seen some of the monuments before, it was great to see them all again!
The excitement only increased after visiting the museums and monuments during the day. Myself, Alie, and Rebehak were meeting Heinrich and his friend Bobby for dinner at a bar in Bethesda. Around 6:30 the three girls hopped on the metro to make it back to dinner on time. Throughout the day I had noticed that my legs were becoming extremely itchy and even swelling a little. I thought that maybe it was from just walking to much and being out in the heat. Soon did I realize that I had server sun poisoning on my legs. I started to feel a little ill as well. Poor Rebekah was trying to hunt down water for me as Alie sat there hoping that I was not going to get sick in the metro. The first attempt to get water was a bust, so we just got on the train. About two stops into the train ride, I started to feel ill again. So we had to get off and Rebekah ran above ground to find me water. The second attempt was a success and I finally started to feel better. Thanks goodness I had Alie and Rebekah to help me or I don't know what I would have done.
We made it to dinner and we all had a wonderful time. Alie and I said our goodbyes to Heinrich, Bobby, and Rebekah and headed back to Chevy Chase. Both of us went right upstairs to fall asleep. This morning Alie's mom cooked us an amazing breakfast of pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage, and Mimosa's. It was fantastic! Sadly I said my goodbyes and ventured my way back to Mercersburg. I leave this up coming Friday for my permit home in Hilton Head. So excited just to finally be down there.
Kat
