The eighth grade at The Benjamin School recently took a break from making their monuments in honor of heroes (see article, A Monumental Occasion in The Neersyde), to actually visit some of the nation’s best monuments in Washington, D.C. However, instead of just providing readers with a stale recap, here’s a more interesting look at the trip, journal-style:

Day 1

Monday November 3, 6:15 AM, Polka Dot: Students arrive at school, and the competition between Bus 1 and Bus 2 begins. In the Polka Dot parking lot, there are many curious conversations that take place with excited students. “Who do you think is going to be in my room?”, “Who is going to be our chaperone?”, “Are we on Bus 1 or Bus 2?”, “I’m so excited, aren’t you?”. Many students have been awaiting this trip since they have arrived at The Benjamin School.  Etoile Gelman has been looking forward to “ the White House and seeing the MLK Memorial”, and Samantha Sweeney exclaims, “It is my first time going to D.C., and I am really looking forward to everything,  mostly the Air and Space Museum and maybe going on the simulator!”

9:40 AM, Fort Lauderdale International Airport: Students say their final goodbyes to warm weather and the state of Florida as they prepare to board the plane.

9:40 AM-12:04 PM, JetBlue Flight #1480: Sleep… TV…  movies… soda…  more sleep.

12:30 PM, The National Mall: From Reagan Airport to the buses to the Mall. No, not the shopping mall, the National Mall – the grassy area between Independence and Constitution Avenues and also between the Capitol and the Washington Monument. And yes, D.C., is colder than Florida, but it’s brisk and invigorating (high 60s), not freezing and depressing. The first museums the eighth graders visit are the National Museum of Natural History and the National Gallery of Art, both located on the National Mall. One of the featured exhibits in the National Museum of Natural History is the Sant Ocean Hall exhibit which presents 674 marine specimens, just a small amount of the museum’s 80 million specimens. There is also an exhibit about bones and bodily structures of animals. That’s a lot of fur.

3:30 PM, Ford’s Theater: The eighth grade is able to go inside this historic building and see the Presidential Box where Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth in April of 1865. The museum below houses the actual gun used by Booth and provides details about the other conspirators and their plan  which Booth thought would overthrow the government and result in a coup.

5:00 PM, Vapiano, Chinatown: The students dine at this Italian pizza restaurant. One of the waiters serenades us (I thought this only happened in Hollywood!) before doling out delicious pizzas which are delivered to the tables and gobbled up in a matter of seconds. You can never go wrong when you combine pizza and middle schoolers.

6:30 PM, Night Tour of the Monuments: Tonight the students visit a number of memorials: the Korean War Memorial, the Vietnam War Memorial, and the Abraham Lincoln Monument. “The fact that the [Vietnam] War Memorial has everybody’s names who died in the war was very touching,” reflects eighth grader Jack Poncy.

9:00 PM, Best Western Iwo Jima: Students finally check in to their hotel to relax and work on their daily journals. Four students to a room – girls on the first floor, boys on the second. Walking around D.C. is tiring!

11:00 PM: Lights out. Good night, folks!

Day 2

Tuesday, November 4 (Election Day!), 6:30 AM: Wake up call! The eighth grade gets up bright and early.

9:00 AM: The first stop today is the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial. Here the students are split into Bus 1 and Bus 2 and recite poems that they wrote the night before that use only words found in the “I Have a Dream” speech.  The best poems selected by each bus group read their finished works to the entire grade. Jesse Martin reads her group’s poem to represent Bus 1, and Katie Pescinski reads her group’s poem to represent Bus 2.

11:00 AM: After waiting in security for half an hour, the eighth graders get to enter the White House. No pictures are allowed, but what a great experience to see the history of the mansion that’s housed every president since John Adams in 1800. We see the Green Room, the Blue Room, The Red Room, taht is a couple rooms short of a rainbow . Unfortunately, we did not see any  bedrooms…and no West Wing.

12:00 PM: Lunch today is at Old Town Alexandria. This historic area in Virginia has buildings dating back to the 1700’s, but it has some modern parts too, such as the Chipotle right off of King Street (Mmmmm…burritos. #homersimpson). Some of the other popular restaurants students patronize are Bruegger’s Bagels, Starbucks, and Subway.

2:00 PM: One of the most interesting and moving museums is the Holocaust Memorial Museum.  The museum is divided into three sections on three floors. The third floor chronicles Hitler’s rise to power; the second is about “The Final Solution,” Hitler’s plan to exterminate the Jews and other non-Aryan races; and the first floor is about the ending of the war and the aftermath. Eighth grader Sam Fox is very moved by his experience here: “It showed all of the Jews and what they went through in a realistic sense, and it’s sad to see what has happened to the Jews during [that] time. After the Holocaust museum, students visited the American Museum of Natural History. No one spotted Ben Stiller, though…

8:00 PM: The next stop on the trip is the Kennedy Center to eat dinner and watch the play Shear Madness, a murder mystery that takes place in a hair salon. The play invites the audience to participate and help solve the crime. The night the eighth grade attends, the crowd helps find the hairdresser’s assistant, Barbara, guilty. For many students, this is their favorite part of the trip. Of course it is. I mean, c’mon – when visiting D.C. everyone always talks about the must-see interactive comedy murder mystery, right?

Day 3

Wednesday, November 5, 10:00 AM: Earlier this morning, the eighth grade finds out that Representative Patrick Murphy, who was a guest speaker recently at The Benjamin School to prepare theeighth graders for Washington, D.C., has been reelected to his position as Congressman for our district. The first stop today is Arlington National Cemetery. The highlights of the visit are the Kennedy grave site with the Eternal Flame and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The Tomb holds a body from World War II that was unable to be identified, and it is a symbol of all men and women who fought for freedom and died in America’s wars throughout the 20th century. It also symbolizes that the United States does not leave anyone on the battlefield. A soldier guards the tomb 24/7, and there is always a wreath hanging in front of it. Four Benjamin students, Danny Rexroad, Noelle Matese, McKenna Maxwell, and Eva Hasenhuttl-Bishop, were chosen for the wreath laying ceremony with the guard. Participating in this ceremony is a great honor, and these students earned this opportunity by writing an essay explaining why they should take part in this ceremony. It is an unforgettable experience. “At first I was a little bit nervous, but then I started to realize what I was doing, and I really enjoyed it,” says Matese. She and the other three students are in close proximity to the guard, who proves that he isn’t just all business. “I thought that he was intimidating and scary, but then he started joking with us, and he was very nice when he was off duty,” she exclaims.

12:00 PM: The students take an hour to explore and eat at the Air and Space Museum. Some students feel that an hour is not enough time to truly see all of the museum. Some students were able to go on the simulator though. There were several different simulators in the Air and Space Museum simulating a spaceship ride, an aerial combat battle, and an F-18 Hornet fighter jet for the US Navy. Eighth grader Louie Gaeta expressed his opinions about having more time at the museum. “We should have had about four hours because it was the best museum I went to,” he said, “I could have went all around the museum probably three times and still enjoyed it”. He also liked the simulator, “I had a lot of fun [on it]. I was screaming my mouth off. It was pretty intense, and I loved it. I got flipped upside down like ten times and I almost peed my pants”.

1:30 PM: Another unforgettable stop today is the World War II Memorial. The eighth grade’s visit to this memorial is particularly interesting because it coincides with an Honor Flight that brings several WWII veterans from across the country to the memorial. One of these veterans happens to be eighth grader Dan Majewski’s grandfather, Theodore Majewski Sr., a member of the US Navy stationed in the Philippines. “I thought it was really cool to see my grandfather with all of the other war veterans, especially because the week before he had surgery on his back,” says Dan. Many teachers find this memorial remarkable also, including Mr. Hagy. “I was extremely proud of our students in the way they showed respect and dignity for the situation these veterans are in coming to this memorial after many years of serving our country. Students thanked veterans for their service and posed for a picture,” he said. Hagy also notes that “the students were completely fine in the way they represented the School.”  The memorial also reminds others of family members who served in the war. “Seeing the World War II veterans was very emotional.  My two grandfathers fought in World War II and they would have loved to have seen it,” said eighth grade history teacher Ms. Mack.

2:30 PM: The next stop on this busy day is the National Cathedral. It is the second largest cathedral in the United States and is used as a place of worship for all religions. The students get a tour of the cathedral, and they learn about the gargoyles (statues) and grotesques (statues that allow water to drain from the roofing) of the cathedral. “I loved the National Cathedral,” comments Ms. Mack.  “The windows were beautiful, especially the space window”., one of the windows in the cathedral that is part of the cathedral’s theme of combining American history with religion.  The space window is so called because , according to the National Cathedral’s official website, the window is a picture of outer space with a 7.18-gram basalt lunar rock from the moon’s Sea of Tranquility embedded in the center top of the window. It symbolizes the nation’s explorations into space.

6:30 PM: Dinner tonight is at the mall, no not the National Mall, the Pentagon Mall food court. Restaurants range from Chinese to Cajun and many different students head to different places. After they finish eating, students roam the mall to browse and shop. Along with pizza, shopping and middle schoolers is a perfect match.

Day 4

Thursday, November 6, 2014, 6:00 AM: Earlier wake up (groan). Packing day!

8:50 AM: The Capitol Building tour is the last stop on the trip. Students watch a video and walk through the crypt and rotunda of the building where the Congress and Senate debate and pass laws. Unfortunately, students do not get to see the House or Senate floors, but they do get to see the Rotunda which is currently being repaired.

The D.C. trip had many exciting and lasting memories and various highlights. Both teachers and students had a great time. “My favorite part of the D.C. trip was the time spent on the bus listening to the monument speeches and getting to know the students and faculty better,” said Ms. Mack. From the perspective of student, Noelle Matese said her  “favorite part was the play and laying the wreath.  The play was very funny and suspenseful.  It was a great experience,”. The Benjamin School eighth grade did not just visit Washington, D.C. They lived, learned, appreciated, and experienced for four days what the government officials do to keep this country going, and how much is done to help preserve our freedoms and protect our environment, allowing the students here at The Benjamin School, 900 miles away from Washington DC to learn, make friends, and enjoy the everyday freedoms that all of us take for granted.