Aug 04, 2005 17:20
A year apart, and I was still incapable of resisting either one of them.
"Here Warren, it's just a little bit of Johnnie Walker. Look, I mixed it with water."
Cameron and Laura, the swilling soldiers on the frontlines of my sophomore year corruption, left Gainesville for a fabulous DuPont Circle apartment last May. Somehow, in honing my political savvy, I missed out on visiting the nation's capital - until last month.
A rush of patriotism (fueled more by easy access to regional rail than by a love of country) sent me to Philadelphia for Memorial Day. Sarah and I spent our way across Manhattan (and Staten Island) in mid-July. A trip to Boston unfortunately had to be scratched.
But it was Washington that allowed me to tour the greatest hits of American history and the opportunity to consume excessive amounts of alcohol.
When I scored three consecutive days off for the Fourth of July, I was primed. I knew no fewer than half a dozen past and present Gators in the District, so I fired up my Gmail and started looking for a place to stay.
Cameron and Laura, with their reportedly swank digs and impeccable taste, topped the list. I was grateful when they offered their couch.
The trip to Washington appeared straightforward: Domnick, the other reporting intern, would drive me to Doylestown, where I would catch a regional train to Philadelphia's 30th Street Station, the Amtrak hub.
I warned Domnick the night before that I had to be on the first of my trains by 8:30 and though we were out the door by 7 the next morning, it was a harrowing ride.
Domnick - God bless him - hails from Kansas City, Missouri. He has a tendency to inadvertently turn his slowly spoken sentences into questions.
In the Midwest, life moves at a lazier pace; I should not have been surprised when he insisted on driving 25 miles per hour on the way to Doylestown.
I sat in nervous silence, gripping the armrest and staring at the digital dashboard clock, wondering if I could freeze the numerals with the intensity of my gaze.
At 8:15, with 10 miles to go, Domnick asked how we were doing on time.
Clearing my throat was all I could manage.
"I guess I'd better step on it?" he asked/stated.
In the end, I arrived at Washington's Union Station on time. Cameron breezed from a Metro tube and began the tour.
A block from the apartment he and Laura share, a noticed a familiar flag hanging from a fortified building.
"Is that the Iraqi embassy?" I asked warily.
"Yeah, Laura is afraid they're going to kidnap her."
Of course.
It was the first of the day's touristic questions, one of the dozens I asked as Cameron and I hiked across the National Mall - my digital camera in hand and the perfect Facebook shot on my mind.
At the White House, there something decidedly off about the crowds: No one spoke English.
"Are there any Americans celebrating American independence?" I wondered aloud, jostling to the fence for the first of 10 pictures I snapped of the presidential mansion.
The afternoon wore on, through the solemn simplicity of the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial, the tangled mess of the National World War II Memorial and the sheer awesomeness of the Lincoln Memorial.
And, back at the apartment, there was another tribute to an all-American hero: Samuel Adams.
By the time Laura arrived home from an excursion in the Shenandoah Valley, Tony had made his capital debut.
Appropriately, we set off for Georgetown.
Eric called soon after we lingered in front of a stately brick townhouse, wondering if John Kerry or Bob Woodward was inside.
"I'm drunk in Georgetown!" I screamed into the phone.
"I've been waiting all summer to hear those words."
Sunday night was a humid blur, capped with a swing by the Watergate complex and a mandatory viewing of Mean Girls once we returned to the Circle.
Cameron slipped me the Johnnie Walker as Cady Heron readied for her first day of school.
On Monday the Fourth - the real reason for the trip - Laura and I returned to Georgetown to disgorge the money that keeps our nation's economy strong. I held off on an ultra-trendy, ultra-overpriced Lacoste polo (I later caved at the Fifth Avenue store), felt compelled to empty my bank account at French Connection, but scored a treasure on the sale rack at Urban Outfitters: a T-shirt emblazoned with the Liberty Bell and the phrase, "Come to Philly for the crack."
I was in love.
So in love that I wore it to fireworks on the National Mall, secretly gloating at the smiles of passersby as they read my chest.
On Tuesday, I struck out on my own, successfully taking the Metro to Capitol Hill and soaking up as much of the Smithsonian as possible. During my frenzied tour of the nation's attic, I breezing past Warren Harding's pajamas and Jackie Kennedy's pearls, learned everything I had ever wanted to know about my favorite first lady (Betty Bloomer Ford) and resisted the urge to grope the Capitol statuary in the name of Facebook.
Before I packed my too-small overnight bag and boarded the train north, Cameron treated me to a walk across the Georgetown University campus. Unknowingly, we had used up the last of the day's fair weather.
Rain began to pour as I stepped outside their apartment building.
A borrowed bright yellow umbrella protected me from the worst of the storm but left my paper French Connection bag exposed. By the time I lugged it to the Metro station, it was a soggy mess and the expensive discount jeans were poking through. I sopped through puddles in leather flip flops I swore I would never allow to touch water. With my battered baggage and addled expression, I looked every bit the tourist.
Five hours later, the second of that day's trains deposited me in Doylestown. Domnick was waiting.
I threw my luggage into the trunk of his rental car.
"How was Boston?" he asked enthusiastically.
I stared blankly.
It was one hell of a party, Domnick.