Day 8: The End

This morning we all went our separate ways for the last morning in DC. My room slept in and then Allison, Celeste, and I headed over to a cafe down the street called La Madeline. It had breakfast, pastries, and drinks. It was a cute, little, french cafe. The portions were big so I only got an orange juice, chocolate croissant, and scrambled eggs. Once we finished, we headed back to the hotel where we all gathered for the bus to the airport. On the bus to the Dulles Airport, we saw our last historical monuments and got ready for home. We were at the airport for like 3 hours. We tried Five Guys, which is the eastern US In & Out Burger, but it wasn't close to the wonderful taste of In & Out. It was okay. We got on the plane and headed home. The plane ride was longer and the tv shows were repeats from the flight to DC. All was great on Virgin Airlines and I was very surprised by the wonderfulness of VA. It was a great trip and I can't wait for the next one!!!

Day 7: The Last Day

Today was the day of Mount Vernon. I actually thought this was an interesting place! It's beautiful at Mount Vernon, the place where Washington lived his life and he's still buried there with his wife Martha. It's beautiful and his mansion was placed on a hill with the view of the Potomac River and the snowy grass of his lawn. We took a tour of his land and mansion, then got some yummy lunch. Once we were done eating, we looked through the souvenir shop and got on to our bus. Then we headed to the Arlington National Cemetery. At the cemetery, we hurried a mile up hill to see the Changing of the Guards ceremony. After the wonderful ceremony, we headed downhill to the Kennedy Memorial site. Their memorials are right across from the Lincoln Memorial down the street. After the visit of the Cemetery, I got a text from my aunt remembering the loss of my grandfather last year to this day. .... ironic. We got back, relaxed, then made my mom's yummy chili for dinner. It was a relaxing night before our flight back home tomorrow.

It was nice getting to know you Washington DC, for you are a beautiful and historical city that I am honored to be a part of.

Day 6: The President's House

This morning we had our tour of the White House. It was pretty cool though we only got to see like 5 rooms, including the Yellow, Blue, Red, and Green Rooms, plus the Senate Dining Room. Jen, Erika, and I laid quickly on the floor before we left. As we left out through the front door of the White House, the second floor has butterflies in the window which we might think could be one of the first daughters' room. We then headed over to the White House Souvenir shop and the Corner Bakery for some quick snacks. Once done, we headed toward the Ford Theater and Petersen House. We couldn't get tickets for the time for the Ford Theater, so we went over to the Petersen House. It was a quick look at the place where Lincoln died. We then went into a different souvenir shop and bought some cool sweatshirts and stuff. We headed over to the Old Post Office Tower for lunch. We grabbed a quick lunch and went up to the top of the tower but it was ultra windy and scared me to death so I was up there for only 20 seconds. haha Then it was time to walk over to the International Spy Museum. The spy museum was cool because we got to pick an identity and walk through the different exhibits of spy gear and times in history of the spies. It was sweet! We came back to the hotel, played some cards and relaxed then headed out to dinner. We went to The Guards, which is a sketchy and janky restaurant and wasn't that great but it was nice to just relax and gossip with the group. After dinner we headed back to the hotel and watched Scary Movie and Comedy Central. ...until bed

Day 5: Lots to Do, So Little Time

We left the house by 9 am for a day on our own. As a girl scout troop, we took a few pictures in front of the White House, even a few with a Beach Reporter, and headed over to the White House Visitor Center. We watched a video explaining the White House and put like half of us to sleep. Once done we split into 2 groups. My group included Jen, Cindy, Shayna, my mom, and myself; the rest decided that they didn't want to go up to the top of the Washington Monument. Throughout the day, though, we practically bumped into them every where we went. We got tickets for the Monument for 1 pm, but first went to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. At the Bureau, the gov prints money... mmmmMoney! It was pretty cool but our tour lady spoke like a robot and was a little awkward..haha After the Bureau, we went to the Holocaust Museum cafe and had tomato + mozzarella panini. That was good. It was then time for our Washington Monument tour. We got there and it was ultra windy. The Monument is the tallest in the world that isn't made with metal. That's scared the CRAP out of me!!! 555 feet tall! But it was a pretty site from all sides of the obelisk. Once we got down, we headed toward the National Archives where the Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, Articles of Confederation, and Magna Carta are. That was cool to see! We then headed back to the hotel. Jen and I decided to try and write a song, but we only got like 2 verses done. We made english muffin pizzas for dinner. Then, we had our night tour of practically all the major monuments. Our driver was some guy from India and he was pretty funny and chill. Seeing the monuments at night is different than during the day and actually can be prettier depending on the site. We got home pretty late, had cookies and milk, and watched a South Park episode about pee..... interesting day tomorrow.....

Day 4: On the Move

This morning was an EARLY MORNING. We had to be out the door by 7 am. Everyone, including Levi and Linda, was out the door. We got on a bus that took us all the way across town. This morning we had to be at the Capitol Building by 8:30 am. It was really windy and cold. We had to wait in line outside the building in the cold and Jen almost slipped on her butt because of the ice. We went past security and had to wait for Cindy and my mom to get the tickets for the Gallery watch. Jen and I annoyed Amanda by singing songs. Before getting into the Capitol tour, a large group of 8th graders cut in front of us. We walked into this auditorium thing that gave us an intro video of the Capitol. We then met our tour guide lady who had some weird accent and went on with the tour. It's a cool building with lots of historicalness to it. There are many statues inside the Capitol of practically every historical figure you can think of. After the tour we headed in a tunnel to the Library of Congress. We took a tour of the Library of Congress and our tourguide was some old guy. He was pretty chill though I was ultra tired and didn't really listen. After the tour, we headed over to lunch. Half went to some cafe and the other half of us went to Pete's Diner. So Peter's Diner is interesting. You would think that it's an average American diner, but NO! We walked in and it was greatly decorated with Chinese New Year Decs. So we sit down and there's spanish music playing in the background. Then we look at a menu and it's like fully American Diner food. It was soo weird. I asked the waitress for a "fresh" egg salad sandwich and mine it ended up coming out last. But it was good food. After lunch, we walked over to Starbucks for warm drinks. Then our small group headed to The Supreme Court. Cindy, Jen, and I decided to take a detour to the steps of the Capitol. We took pic on the steps and there was a security guard that had this huge gun for protection. We headed over to the Supreme Court and only stayed for like 10 minutes because it was boring. Our group decided that we were tired and wanted to head back to the hotel. On the bus back, Jen, Celeste, and I started getting hyper. We got back to the hotel by 3:30 pm, while the other group went to the Art Museum.....

Day 3: Free Day

This morning we slept in. I got up by 9:00 am. We got breakfast and headed out by 10. Jen, Caramia, Allison, Alison, Gina, Celeste, and I took a walk a few blocks to the movie theater. It wasn't too far. Before we left though, we bought our tickets for $7.50 from the hotel counter thinking that it would be more expensive at the theater itself. Once we got to the theater, the tickets would've only cost $6 because we went to an 11 am morning movie. Peter met up with us for the movie, and we all saw Valentine's Day. It was funny but it wasn't that great of a movie in total. I was sitting next to Celeste and throughout the movie she was like crying and laughing and it was hilarious. After the movie, we headed back to the hotel to split up in the afternoon. On the way back, we saw a frozen canal that was covered with snow and it looked beautiful.

At about 2 pm, we headed out to see Georgetown University. Erika, Amanda, Ginny, Caramia, Shayna, Alison, Margaret, Margaret's friend, Barbara, and I went. On the way, it started snowing. It was amazing! I've noticed that as we walk along the streets it seems that drivers here honk A LOT! We took the long way on the way there and ended up having to trudge through mud and sticks and junk. It was getting cold but we managed to get through it and walk up this large hill to the campus. The campus was beautiful, and Europe-like. We met up with some of Erika's friends from her Irish dance team and they showed us around. Once we saw their dorm room and walked through the business building, we went to Starbucks for drinks and talked about the campus. I then realized that it is SUPER competitive to get into Georgetown. It started snowing harder outside and then I started getting dizzy because the snow was swirling around. After coffee, we headed over to the chapel and took pictures. By 5:25 pm, we were back at home. At about 6 pm, we all met up to walk over to dinner. We ate at Clyde's. Jen and I split mini cheeseburger sliders and a caesar salad. It was yummy! For dessert my mom and I split creme brule! On the way back to the hotel, I taught Jen a verse of a Cheaptrick song. Once back at the hotel, we all gathered to talk about tomorrow's events and then split up for bed. We have an early morning tomorrow and a busy day!

Day 2: Day of Peter

7:15 am wake up call. Breakfast downstairs was a chocolate croissant and a bagel with cream cheese. The hot cocoa machine in the lobby broke. :( We all met at the "clubhouse", which is the double bedroom with Ginny, Margaret, Barbara, Amanda, Alison, and Erika. In my room is Allison, Gina, and my mom. In the other room is Cindy, Jen, Celeste, and Shayna. Levi and his mom have their own room. Levi and Linda had a day of their own while us girls had a day of museums. We left for our hike to the Kennedy Center. We trudged in snow, climbed over ice, and caught 2 buses on the way. On one of the buses I met this nice lady named Chen (?) and we talked about living in DC and how she wants to come out to LA for a little bit. Apparently here, people have work from like 9am-8pm and eat between like 8-10pm. That's dinner! Whoa! Kinda late! It was funny, she didn't understand the traffic on like the 405..haha she's like, "why do the cars have to stop??" haha...

Once at the Kennedy Center, we entered in the Hall of States, with all the flags of the states on the ceiling in order from the time we added them into the Union. We took a tour that not many people are able to get. I think it was cool to see the President Boxes of the different Performing Arts rooms/stages. (Pics will be on my Facebook). The Kennedy Center is mainly a performing arts center with different rooms of flags, sculptures, and gifts from our fellow nations. At the top, there is a beautiful view of the "skyscrapers" of DC, they can only be 12 floors or lower. Our tour guide was a little fast and just wanted to keep going. She was kinda interesting. She had weird teeth..haha

After the tour we caught a shuttle to our 2 buses and over to the Smithsonian. We met up with Peter for the day. We got into the Natural History Museum and went straight for the food. We had lunch in the cafe. I had a cheese burger, shared my fries with Alison, and a Sprite. After lunch, we (Ginny, Allison, Celeste, Jen, Peter, Cindy, Gina, me) decided to go off on our own. We first went around the Natural History Museum. We saw the Hope Diamond, Dinosaurs, Butterflies, Diving Beetles, and Insects). Then we headed over to the American History Museum. We saw a 1960s Dumbo ride car, Judy Garland's Ruby Slippers from Wizard of Oz, Kermit the frog, Julia Child's kitchen, presidential photos, US wars exhibit, Fronzie's jacket, and random instruments from the 1800s. Then, because it was ultra warm inside the museums, we decided to get ice cream on the bottom floor in the cafe.

As we headed over to the Air and Space Museum, my jacket got stuck and Ginny and I failed at taking pictures of ourselves and the monuments. As we walked through the "Mall", we saw the beautiful monuments in the snow.

Not much was at the Air and Space Museum besides the Apollo and Wright Brothers exhibit. Peter, Jen, Gina, Allison, and I had a miniature snowball fight before he left us.

After the Smithsonian, we took our 2 buses back to our suites. For dinner, the "clubhouse" group made Spaghetti and yummy garlic bread. Once dinner was over, Allison and I failed at watching "My Life as Liz" because my internet is horrible in the room. After that, it was just chill time in the room.

Can't wait for tomorrow, it's supposed to snow tonight!!!

Day 1: Arrival

4:10 am. The buzz of the alarm goes off. Alison and her mom picked up me and my mom. We then picked up Shayna at her house and got to the airport by 5:00 am. At this time, of course, no one is at the airport except the early flyers. We all had either Starbucks or Burger King for breakfast in the airport. At 6:30 am, we boarded our Virgin America flight to Dulles Airport in DC. I've never been on the Virgin America airline before and it is amazing! I love it! It has everything you could think of for an airplane. The lights are purple too in the cabin. During the flight, I watched tv (Disney), "chatted" with Jen (IM), listened to a playlist that I made on the tv, played games on the tv, and took a small nap. As I used the lavatory in the front of the plane that is apparently only for first class, I talked with the flight attendant guy who was telling me a story... On one flight that he was working, Robert Pattinson was in first class and all these girls kept coming up to the front bathroom to take pictures of him. I thought that was cool, even though the attendant guy didn't really know who Robert was...haha We got off the plane, picked up our bags at baggage claim, then piled into two Shuttle vans. We drove to our hotel, Georgetown Suites off 30th Ave. It didn't take too long but on the way we passed by an airplane hangar that had a collapsed roof. It was interesting to see, being that the collapse was due to snow piled on the top. We settled into our rooms. Called up the pizza guy. Had a good pizza dinner together. Then the moms went out and bought our groceries for the week. Not much else happened but I can't wait for this awesome week ahead of us!!!!

Pre-DC Journey

This week, Troop 6505 is heading to Washington DC. Though this isn't our whole girl scout troop, the majority of us are excited to be spending time in our nation's capital city.

16 in total.

1. Summer (me)

2. Caramia (my mom)

3. Jen (girl)

4. Cindy (Jen's mom)

5. Erika (girl)

6. Margaret (Erika's mom)

7. Shayna (girl)

8. Celeste (girl)

9. Gina (girl)

10. Allison (girl)

11. Amanda (girl)

12. Barbara (girl)

13. Ginny (Amanda/Barbara's mom)

14. Alison (girl)

15. Levi (boy)

16. Linda (Levi's mom)

For many of us, this is our first time visiting this beautiful and historical city and we are PUMPED to see what's there. I'm excited to be sharing my daily events with you, the reader, and I hope that you get inspired by our adventures. Our adventure starts at 4:30am tomorrow...