Number 23

Ride on a train...

I was soo excited about this one. When I first put it on the list, I knew it would be a stretch but I wanted to make it happen. I have been planning this one for awhile.

My lovely friend Marie has an amazing sister who moved to Washington D.C. recently. With this in mind, we began planning an epic weekend.

We bought our train tickets online about three weeks ago. The tickets were from Wilson to DC's Union Station. We left on July 9 and came back the 11.

Words cannot begin to describe how excited I was about it ESPECIALLY because it was my first vacation of the summer. We woke up early Friday morning and with all our belongings headed to Wilson.

I'm not gonna lie, I was a little discouraged upon arrival because the Wilson Train Station is quite unimpressive. I did, however, find some encouragement from the parking attendant. I went up to ask her if it was fine to leave our car there for the weekend and she said, "Honey, you can park wherever you want with those pretty eyes." Yep, my life is amazing.

We got there almost two hours early because we wanted to make sure we could find everything in time...

It took us ten minutes...and we sat.

For a long time.

Finally, we heard the train coming and ran outside to wait for it. The train stopped and there was a mad rush to get aboard.

Climbing on was actually a pleasant surprise.
The interior was similar to that of a plane (two rows of two with an aisle in the middle) except even more roomy.

Marie and I took our seats and before we knew it, we were off. It was a pretty crazy experience because it felt almost like the beginning of a roller coaster or something. Almost like the take-off for a plane, except it never takes off. It was a smooth ride though and we got comfortable really quickly.

The novelty of the train ride wore off rather quickly, and we were stuck with about five hours with not much to do.

I occupied myself by...
1. Annoying Marie
2. Drawing a DC picture/poster/awesome

3. Learning lines for Harvey (do I ever do anything else?)
4. Going to the cafe car (they had sweet booths and stuff)
5. Playing with my Blackberry/Marie's iTouch
6. Annoying Marie
7. Making obnoxious "choo-choo" noises

After a long wait, and many many stops we finally pulled into UNION STATIONNNNNNNN

I practically ran off the train (ok, i'm not going to lie the entire weekend I basically ran everywhere).

I took off into Union Station and was running all around looking at everything. It was very airport-esque (I try to throw a "esque" word into every blog if you haven't noticed yet) and I am in love with airports.

Marie got a hold of Nicole on the phone and she told us to meet her down at the metro station within Union Station.

Ok, let me just explain how big of a deal the metro is for me. I have (had) never been a metro before in my life and it embodies city life to me. If you know me at all, you know that I can't wait to move to the city.

Nicole got off the metro and we ran and hugged and blahhhh. She then taught us how to get our metro cards. I am such a nerd like I'm not sure I have been that excited in my life. I wanted to seem such like a city-mouse. I swiped all my things and put my ticket in and grabbed it out and then walked through. I was the junk, or so I thought.

Nicole taught us the escalator etiquette (If you want to stand, stand on the right. If you want to walk, you walk down the left. I am a walker. I love face-paced life.)


Finally, the big moment came where we got onto the metro.

It was so above and beyond any expectation I had. The station was perfect, the noise and hustle and bustle was like a drug. When the metro came up with the lights and it rushed passed me, the wind was blowing and I felt like my life was complete. No lie, I am very tempted to begin using some "artsy adjectives."

My metro ride changed my life. I wanted to ride it everywhere!

We took it to Friendship Heights and got off and walked to Nicole's apartment.

That night, we went out with some of Nicole's friends to a nice restaurant called Chadwick's. We then just went back to the apartment and talked some before going to sleep.

Saturday was the big day. We woke up...it was raining...we didn't care.

We went to some nice little bagel shop and then hit the metro (love my life) for the middle of the city. We went to the Holocaust Museum, the Natural History Museum, walked to a billion monuments, saw Nicole's work place, ate at Luigi's (My mom's favorite hangout from when she was in her teens), got Hello Cupcake, rented movies and got lots of junk food. We walked sooo much I can't even begin to tell you how much.


Here are some pics from Saturday...



On the metro on Saturday, we did have a mini adventure. We were headed back to Nicole's apartment after a very long day and there was this loud BOOM. The metro came to a stop and the lights went out. I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty terrified. We sat like that for a minute and then the doors opened and we had to get out...and walk. I am not sure how many stops early it was, I think like four or five.
This is about half-way through our walk.

Sunday morning we woke up, took the metro (by ourselves) back to Union Station, got on the train and rode home.

A successful trip...another task completed.

Number 23 is finished!