Every spring break Crosspoint takes a group of American and international students from Clemson to a city for a few days. During this trip we get to tour the city, while also forming relationships with international students. The hope was that we could take these relationships back to school and continue to hang out with each other after the trip.
This year, Crosspoint took the group to Washington D.C., and I got to go!
It. Was. Awesome.
Here are a few highlights...
This is our group picture in the middle of the Library of Congress building.
Every night we ate out at different restaurants, so I got to try a variety of different foods.
This is a picture of my first drink with bubbles in it. I loved it!
There were some Chinese poems on the menus, so I got some of my new Chinese friends to translate them for me. So began my education.
I think one of my favorite parts about this trip was learning about other cultures and seeing how different Chinese, Indians, and Americans are. But more than that, I love the similarities.
This is May. The first night we started talking about journaling, and we had pretty similar tendencies. Even though we may journal in different languages, we feel and think a lot of the same things, and I think that's pretty cool. People are people, no matter what language, country, culture, or race.
We traveled to D.C. on Saturday, so the next morning we went to church at Capitol Hill Baptist Church where Mark Dever is the pastor.
If you are ever in D.C. on a Sunday, do everything in your power to attend a church service here. It was the best service I have ever been to. I don't have room in this blog to talk about everything I loved about it, but it made me want to move to D.C.
After church, we went to the Zoo!
Talk about a fun Sunday afternoon activity.
Obligatory picture with an animal statue.
As I walked around the zoo with these girls, they taught me a Chinese pop song called Xiao Ping Gua, which means "Little Apple" in English. Emily and I basically sang it the rest of the trip.
The Chinese girls were very impressed with our speed in picking up the words to this catchy song.
I could have watched these guys all day. They are some big, big animals.
This owl had us laughing as it seemed to pose for the pictures.
This is the group I walked around DC with for the most part. There are a couple of people that sadly didn't make the elevator selfie.
One of those people is Stella.
I love love love this girl. She is a funny one. We've already gotten to hang out a couple of times since being back in Clemson, and I look forward to more time spent with her!
We went to the National Museum of Natural History. Sadly I think this is the only Smithsonian museum that we went to. It was interesting. I typically love museums but I wasn't a huge fan of this one. My favorite parts, however, were probably the skeletons of different animals and the mummified bodies. I recognize that is kind of weird, but it doesn't change the fact that they were still my favorite.
We took a tour of the Capitol Building. Unfortunately they are doing some construction on the dome, but it was still really awesome.
This is inside the dome of the Capitol Building. I hate history in the class room, but I'll eat it up in real life. The symbolism behind the art in this room was captivating.
It's cool to see where our country has been and how it got to where it is.
On our way to see the White House, the International students all wanted to buy souvenirs. I am typically an unashamed tourist as far as taking pictures and buying things go, but the international students made me look like a local...ok, maybe not quite...
We took a picture of each of them in front of the street vendor with what they bought from it. It was like a little show-and-tell show, and it was really fun. They had some great finds!
Then we saw it.
The White House.
It was cool to see, but I slightly disappointed with the proximity of our viewing point. I took this picture while extending my arm through the fence, and I zoomed in a little bit, so don't be fooled in to thinking that this is the actual distance.
Marie and Josh found out that there was a rooftop in this hotel that we could watch the sunset from. Apparently it's the third most popular roof in the country. I didn't even know that roofs got ranked!
It was beautiful.
After watching the sunset, we walked through China town on our way to dinner.
Dinner for the night: INDIAN FOOD.
I was very excited about this. This was my first time ever eating Indian food, and I got to eat with Indians and with Americans who had been to India, so I got all kinds of pointers and information.
Oh, I also loved the food, which is good since I'll be living there for 5 weeks this summer. I'm not a huge fan of spicy or hot food, but I'm trying to become accustomed to it so that I'll be ready come summer.
The next day we went to the Arlington National Cemetery.
It was insane to see how many graves there were. They went on as far as the eye could see. It was humbling to stand in the midst of the graves of people who fought for our country, and to wonder what they're lives were like.
Then we walked around and saw all of the monuments and memorials, except for the Jefferson memorial. We ran out of time, and apparently it is a long ways away.
So that is the trip in a nut shell. I loved the trip and I really loved D.C.
I am not a city person, but I wouldn't mind living in D.C. for a couple of years. I can't really explain it but I think I kind of fell in love with this place. I hope that I will at least get to go back one day!
