My Trip Into the Nation's Capital

This weekend, I was fortunate enough to have a few friends from Cleveland come up to visit me. After their late arrival Friday night, we set off early yesterday morning to the nations capital. Here, we were planning on walking around the city before attending the Wizards-Cavs game at The Verizon Center at night. We caught the metro (train) at Shady Grove, outside of D.C., and rode into town from there. We came up from the ground then, to find ourselves in the middle of downtown D.C. All of us had not been into the downtown portion of the city, so we were not quite sure where to go. After taking random turns and Devin wanting to follow where the trees were, we ended up at 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue. Pennsylvania Avenue is obviously where the White House is so I asked someone to search the exact address. Upon finding out that it was at 1600, we headed there.

After that, we look around for maps and stopped by other smaller memorials and finally came face to face with the Washington Monument (which was getting repairs done on it). You can see the blue

walkways attached to the monument. So being by there, made a lot of the other monuments accessible for us. We stopped by the World War II memorial (which was our favorite I would say), the Vietnam Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the Korean War Memorial, the FDR Memorial and finally the Jefferson Memorial after a long way around the Tidal Basin. It was 3 by this time and we had yet to eat all day. So we set back into the city but for the life of us could not find a restaurant. A

 

few of us got a quick snack at a roadside hot dog stand (do as the Romans do) and finally came into contact with Ollie's Trolley. This restaurant had an old fashioned feel to it and had very great French Fries, even though I'm not typically a fan. But the 26 different seasonings on top lured me in and was accompanied by a decent burger. Onward to the Holocaust Memorial Museum, which was a little walk from the National Mall. None of us had ever been in the museum before, so we had no idea what to expect going in. It was a very neat museum, but obviously an unfortunate one. It was hard for

some of us seeing exhibits such as a train that the Jews rode in before arriving at concentration camps and thousands of shoes worn by inmates at these camps. But it was a very enriching experience as we furthered our knowledge on the very tough topic. After this we quickly went to the Natural History Museum to see if it was Ben Stiller's shift as night guard. He wasn't there, and neither was the globe like in The Night at the Museum, but we did run into Rexy (as seen above) and looked at other dinosaur fossils. Next up, we were on our way to the Capitol Building but we took a detour at an ice skating rink. We watched a few people fall, and then a Zamboni come out onto the ice. Back on our way to the Capitol we realized the basketball game started at 7 and not 7:30. So we didn't make it to

the Capitol but ending up at The Verizon Center was a good consolation prize. We took our seats in the front section on the baseline and it was hard being a Cavs fan in the first half. We were getting beat by a struggling Wizards team badly. Losing by as much as 15, the Cavs started gaining momentum and put the game within reach. I will have a more descriptive recap of the game later on this blog, but the game came down to the wire at the end. With 23 seconds left, Kyrie Irving brought the ball down the court and drove with little  time left but got blocked so the game went to overtime.

But from there, it was all Cavs as all the Wizards fans started clearing the arena. There were a vast amount of Cavs fans there, especially in our specific section. So the Wizards fans were disappointed but we sure were. After exiting the arena, we ended up in Chinatown. We saw a few street dancers perform live in front of maybe a hundred people who were there with us. Then our group decided to take a crack at authentic Chinese food at a random restaurant. Egg rolls were ordered and when I used the bathroom I was in for a surprise. I had to go in a small little closet in the back of the

place so that was interesting. After eating the delicious egg rolls, we decided to call it a night and head back to my college. None of us had been here since 8th grade when we were on our class trip to Washington D.C. It was ironic that my brother is in 8th grade this year and that trip this year was this past Wednesday through Friday, so we missed them by a day. Actually, I also was in D.C. a month after that trip that year, so I had been to D.C. more recently than a month from the rest of the guys. It was a very neat experience and a fun weekend. I wish we could've been there another day, as we missed things like Arlington Cemetery and most of the Smithsonian Museums, but the fact we got a day in was great. I appreciate Joey, Ryan, Josh and Devin for making the drive in the first place and spending the weekend here. It was great and I can't wait to see them and everyone else from back home soon! Go Cavaliers!