Okay, so it was a gorgeous day (maybe around 70 all day but kinda windy) so me, my bff Maddie, my sisters, maddies sisters, and both moms all went to Washington dc to see the cherry blossom trees bloom. We were all expecting a pleasant day, wandering around the city under a canopy of white blossoms that were showering petals from above. Sounds like heaven right? Too bad that was the exact opposite of what happened. So we decided to all fit into one van, meaning that two people would have to double buckle (Hannah and Julia cuz they have the smallest butts and don’t use carseats) our van has a built in dvd player so I assumed I would be able to have a peaceful drive. So. Wrong. At first everyone was quiet and content with watching who knows what movie. Soon the youngest girls were complaining that they were hungry. It was 10 o’clock. After they were satisfied with kit kats me, Hannah and Julia played Mario cart for, oh, like and hour or more. By the time we were actually in the city my brain was fried. Anywho this whole time out gps was yelling at us for not listening (I swear aunt webb knows more than that electronic device does) so we finally are approaching our first destination- the zoo. Too bad for us the zoo parking lot was COMPLETELY full (I didn’t even know that was possible!) so forget that idea. After about another 30 mins of looking for a parking spot, we decide to go and see the cathedral (im sorry but I forget its specific name) at this point we all had to pee. Bad. So we conveniently find a spot right smack in front of the cathedral and only have to walk a few yards to the entrance which happened to be huge glass doors that must have been cleaned very frequently because I honestly didn’t notice them until I almost ran into one of them. we all filed in, ran to the bathroom as fast as possible, and then walked into the chapel. I seriously felt like I had been taken back in time. Here are some pics:
This is my view as soon as we walked thru the doors.
People were actually having like a church service when we walked in.
It had the most beautiful stained glass windows that cast colorful patterns onto the floor...
… and on maddies face.
Anyway, so there was gonna be this organ presentation thingie where some guy was going to actually play the gigantic organ which I failed to get a picture of-sorry! We were sitting in these chairs off the side of the worship room thing where the organ was, waiting for the presentations to start. Me and Maddie got bored and decided to go explore. On the side of the chapel we found this:
Its kinda hard to see cuz its dark but it was like this tunnel with all these different stained glass pictures on the wall. I felt like I was entering a different world.
So we reached the end of the tunnel and turned back, only to find that our families had disappeared. Apparently they had gone into the little (well, more like huge…) worship room to see the organ presentation. Me and Maddie didn’t want to walk in front of all these people to get to the moms (they had chosen the very front- how smart of them) so we sat back down where we were before. The organ player dude was talking on and on about the history of organs and how they were played and stuff like that. So me and mads were talking the whole time, completely unaware that the dude had stopped explaining the organ and had sat down to play. As soon as he struck the first, and extremely LOUD, chord, we both practically jumped out of our skin!! It sounded like something out of a horror movie! Maddie leaned over and said ‘it’s a good thing we weren’t in the tunnel when he started playing or else I would have screamed and run for my life.’ The tunnel was kinda spooky- it reminded me of the volturi in the new moon movie and I almost expected a vampire to jump out around the next corner. But, of course, nothing out of the ordinary happened, except the organ dude scaring the crap out of us.
So after that, since it was around 1, we went across the street to the ‘bishops garden’ which had to be the most beautiful place I have ever been in my whole entire life. It was like a combination of Narnia and the secret garden. If the cathedral was a different world, this was like being inside a book or something.
This is the legit entrance to Narnia, or so I think.
My mom thinks this picture it postcard worthy :)
This is maddies entrance to Narnia
Maddie has died in Narnia. Lol
Ok so that was the garden- pretty, huh? So then aunt webb and mom wanted to go to the verrrrrrrry top of the cathedral, which, by the way, can only be achieved if you ride this rickety old elevator up seven floors and its going like, faster than I can run, up and down. I thought I might die. Oh, and it doesn’t help that theres a window in the door so you can see whenever you pass a floor. It was very frightening.
Hey, you can see my van from here!
It was very narrow and claustrophobic, but the view was great. Although I was ready to walk down 7 flights of stairs (which were emergency only) rather than ride that death trap back down at 100 mph plummeting to my death…….
Ok, so next was the zoo. It was crowded and the ice cream cost 3 bucks. So did the soda. And it smelled like sweaty guys. Ew.
its simba!!! or maybe not......
Ooo look, overgrown chipmunks….i mean, prairie dogs……
So then we wanted to drive to the cherry blossom trees and take some pictures. We never even got out of the car. I think we spent about 2 hours driving just to see some trees. We started out going the wrong way, but that ended up taking us thru Georgetown which was pretty awesome. About halfway thru the car ride I finished my soda and then reeeeeeeally had to pee. Like the im-gonna-explode-if-we-don’t-find-a-bathroom-in-the-next-5-minutes. But apparently we were nowhere near a bathroom. Oh, joy. The next thirty minutes I spent in that van were the most uncomfortable and agonizing 30 mins of my life. Everyone was screaming, my mom was losing her mind having to drive thru that traffic and on top of on the verge of exploding, I had a massive headache. Not. Fun. At. All. So we finally find a parking garage and guess what? No bathrooms. We had to walk down the block (well more like sprint for me) to the nearest bathroom and then the security dude (because it was a bank- I think….) had to show us where they were. I just about died.
After everyone had used the bathroom, we were all starving so we walked around looking for food. There was a chipotle across the street (I hate chipotle) a mcdonalds (ew) and some Chinese/Japanese restaurant. Across the street was the national portrait gallery with a food court. Father down we had ruby Tuesdays, some Mexican place, salad and sandwiches and another Chinese place. We wanted to go to the national portrait gallery food court because aunt webb said it was big, airy and quiet. We did not know, however, that practically all the food was gone. There was a few sandwiches and some pudding left. I was so starving that I didn’t care. I had taken one bite of my sandwich when Hannah exclaimed ‘my pudding is moldy!’ I dropped the sandwich and immediately inspected it for mold. It was mold free, but I still refused to eat it because what if it was contaminated? So mom got her $32 back and we left the peaceful sereneness of the café and went back to our first options. We decided on Mexican (after maybe another 30 mins). it was delicious. So after we stuffed ourselves with food, we walked back to our parking garage, only to find that the entrance we had come out of was locked. And heaven forbid we walk down the ramp else we get hit by all the cars that were just zooming in and out of there. for a minute we thought we had the wrong garage. Thankfully, we found our van thanks to a friendly (or, not so friendly) parking garage guy (do they have official names?? Hmmmm…..) who pointed us in the right direction. A number of times. So we all climb in and me and Maddie were watching the lion, the witch and the wardrobe earlier (when we were stuck in traffic and I had to pee like crazy) but the little girls didn’t want to watch it. So for the sake of my mothers sanity we had to watch the Hannah Montana movie. The little girls weren’t even watching it! And we didn’t even get to the good part in Narnia L after about 15 mins of the little girls incessant chatter, I was seriously willing to walk home. Or ride a bus or hitchhike or an-y-thing to get me out of that van. Yes, it was that bad. Thankfully after a while they settled down and I could think clearly again.
All-in-all it was a pretty good trip, minus the traffic, getting scared out of our pants by and organ, moldy food, and screaming children. I do know for sure that we will not be going back anytime soon.
