While some students scramble for the beach or mountains, there are a few who take a different path. I decided to ditch the sand and the slopes and head for the historic and beautiful East Coast. Washington D.C. to be more specific.
In order to keep up with the local folk, my family chose to skip the leisure of sleeping in, and began the day at a bright and early 7 A.M. Once the sleep was scraped from my eyes and my cute tourist clothes were on, I quickly enjoyed my complementary breakfast and flew out the door. Waiting outside was the Teresa Chaurand, one of President Obama’s personal assistants and my best friends’ aunt. I refer to her as “the Teresa” because she is not only a fantastic assistant to the President, but also, her special access to official government offices is what makes this adventure so unique. We hopped in her black suburban, and got to experience true D.C. driving. While it was a little more reckless than back in Kansas, she got us to our destination safely, and with our Caribou Coffee in hand, our day finally was underway.
With one wave of her handy dandy badge, Teresa pointed us in the direction of the International Spy Museum and was waved through security outside of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where her office is located. Eager to explore the Spy Museum, we crossed the mile distance as quickly as possible, and about half an hour later we arrived. There we decide to pay for the combination of a museum tour and the interactive “Operation Spy” tour. This tour was simply amazing and a lot of fun. The tour guides made tourists feel like real-life Jack Bower or Jason Bourne. An entire hour and a half was devoted to the creation of a fictitious yet realistic scenario where the intelligence gathered by a secret agent or spy was necessary. Based around the threat nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands, it became the responsibility of the “agents” to put together missing pieces within the dramatic plot and ultimately have a successful “mission.” After our group had a successful mission, we were free to explore the rest of the museum, and were given a taste of the hugely historic significance spy’s have had not only in America, but internationally. A
Although to my fellow peers the interactive tour maybe considered childish, the operation was very entertaining, and made the experience at the museum much more memorable.
Once we were finished at the International Spy Museum, we grabbed a quick bite of lunch, then made our way back to Teresa where the opportunity of a lifetime was awaiting us. We were going to bowl in the Truman Bowling Alley. From 3-5 in the afternoon, we had the bowling alley all to ourselves. We split up in to two teams and had an intense competition. On my first turn I got a strike, and although the rest of my game ended up rolling down the gutter, it was an amazing time, and a unique taste of history.
After we put up our rented bowling shoes we made our way through downtown D.C. to a great Mexican restaurant called, Rosa Mexicano. There, they made the best guacamole in the world right at your table, and everything had a very authentic feel and taste.
With our stomachs full, we tooled around Chinatown, and were immersed in tons of trinket shops all centered around the Chinese culture. It was so cool to see name brands such as Starbucka and The Loft written in Chinese. We would have loved to tour the area longer, but it was becoming late and we still had places to be before we collapsed in our hotel rooms later that night. So we crawled through the crowded downtown streets to the closest Metro station, purchased one-way tickets to the end of the line stop Shady Grove (where our hotel was located), and enjoyed the hour long ride of awkward, exhausted stares and silence of strangers simply trying to get home. While the announcer drearily came over the speakers stating that everyone was to get off the train at the final stop, we all hopped into Teresa’s waiting car, and made our way to up our second to last stop.
Due to my family’s unwavering ability to forget things needed for a comfortable vacation, we found ourselves in a two story Target. This target had to be the coolest Target I had ever been. It had a cart escalator, I mean really how awesome is that? We gathered groceries such as coffee, creamer, Diet Coke, Ice Cream and shoes. I had forgotten my very much-needed black high heels at home, and luckily was able to find a cheap pair of replacements. With the full shopping cart unloaded, we were finally almost home from our first day of D.C.
Immediately after pulling up the hotel, we all thanked Teresa for all she had helped us with, unloaded the car, and made it up to our rooms. There, we all enjoyed Ben and Jerry ice cream, watched some O’Rielly Factor, then collapsed each in our beds.