The following is my account of the second day of the trip I took to Washington, DC, in 8th grade. Four years ago. Wow. Long time. For clarification, Redlands is the other middle school that went with us, this is how I wrote back in 8th grade, and I was in a room with four other girls. I didn’t like any of them, and they didn’t like me. I slept in a cot at the far end of our room and I was still in my annoying non-conformity stage. Enjoy.
Got up at five thirty. After sleeping for about an hour. They all got up and then took another shower, then dried their hair (all four of them), straitened it, and spent an hour putting on their make-up. It was insane.
Then at six thirty we ate breakfast. Note to self: never eat Comfort Inn’s eggs. *shudder*. I could hear my roommates telling the boys about how I was throwing a *b*fit last night because they wouldn’t go to sleep. But it’s funny, on the bus after breakfast to our first destinations, I heard EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM complaining on how tired they were. Go figure, eh?
Anyway, I met a girl from Redlands, Calloway, so I hung out with her. Our first stop was the Vietnam memorial. It was really pretty, and really sad. Then we walked to the Lincoln memorial, which was incredible. He was HUGE.
Then we we went to Arlington National Cemetery. It was incredible, how far it stretched. It was also even sadder than the Vietnam memorial. We walked around for a while, just looking at all the gravestones. We saw JFK’s grave, and his wive’s and his brother’s. Then Mr. Mages (The lead guy, a teacher from Redlands), took the four kids (including me) that were going to lay the wreath on the tomb of the unknown soldiers to get changed into our nice clothes. I wore that beige skirt and brown tank top I wore to bon voyage, plus a jacket-like thing that matched the skirt and looked professional.
Then we went to where they were just starting the changing of the guards in front of the tomb. We waited for about twenty minutes, then a soldier came up to us four and told us what we had to do. The two kids from redlands were in front, and me and Cody were in the back. We then walked down some stairs, with me concentrating very hard not to step on the girl’s skirt in front of me. Then at the bottom we stopped and the two kids in front accepted the wreath and placed it on the tripod. Me and Cody just kind of stood there and watched. Then someone played taps on the trumpet and we walked back up.
That was it. Then we went to Buger King for lunch. Since World Strides was paying for us
, we could get as much as we wanted. I sat with Craig, Cody, Taylor, Greg, and Stephani. Craig had three double cheeseburgers, two large fries, and two large drinks. It was so gross. But he ate it all, and then some. After that we went on the subway to the Smithsonian American history and natural history complexes. They were pretty cool. I got a sweet republican tie there, and wore it for the rest of the day.
After that we went back to the bus and went to a Chinese place for dinner. It was ok…and I was kind of hyper so I was doing these weird things with my empty pop can and chopsticks. Nothing gross, just kind of random. Then we went to the World War II memorial at about 6 or 7. That was one of my favorite places. It was so pretty, with the sun going down and the fountains. Then we went back to the hotel and my roommates once again took forever to shower. But they settled down by about 11:30, thankfully.
