Trippin’ in D.C.

The Running Text Diary of Two Eighth-Grade Witnesses

JakeM: I can’t believe we went Washington D.C! TBH, the Ronald Regan Airport is so much nicer than the Fort Lauderdale Airport we left from. What bus were you on?

AlexandraD: Bus 1, the best bus of them all.

JakeM: Me too! Glad you agree.

AlexandraD: Sorry I meant bus 2. Autocorrect is the worst….

JakeM: I believe you’re mistaken, Alexandra. Even autocorrect agrees with me. We’re here to help you realize the truth of the matter – that Bus 1 is the best.

AlexandraD: And so the bus war continues… *sigh*  Anyway, It’s great that we had so much freedom. We got to visit museums and choose where to eat lunch all by ourselves (check out the photo gallery here!). “In Old Town Alexandria, Maximo [Haddad] and I choose to go to a Steakhouse for lunch rather than other chains,” said eighth grader Alex Goetschius. “We each got filet mignons and thoroughly enjoyed our $27 steaks.”

Jake M: Yeah, everyone in the eighth grade really maximized and took advantage of their time in Washington, not just Alex. I was pretty sad to leave. We made so many memories there. Eighth grader Rigby Peckham said, “It was very fun to go on this trip since I was able to spend time with friends away from home and to see our country’s capital.”

AlexandraD: I completely agree with him.

JakeM: Ok, well the Air and Space Museum was amazing (and my favorite part) because of all the different air and spacecrafts. On the second day when we went to the Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport, we saw Journey to Space 3D, the IMAX movie, and we saw some airplanes and spacecraft of historical significance such as the Space Shuttle Discovery and the B-29 Enola Gay – the plane that dropped the atomic bomb, “Little Boy,” on Hiroshima during WWII. Eighth-grade science teacher Mr. Tim Sanders really loved all the aircraft and spacecraft the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center could offer. “I especially enjoyed the Dulles [Air and Space] Museum because any science guy there would feel like he is in heaven because of all the science history involved!”

AlexandraD: I know! It was the best. And the Holocaust Museum and Memorial was a really sobering experience. I thought it was really educational going through all four floors and seeing all the artifacts. The walkway with all of the victims’ actual shoes lying on either side of the floor was pretty intense.

JakeM: Yeah. Some of history’s most important lessons are also the most tragic, but they are necessary so that our generation and future generations are able to prevent such atrocities from happening again. On a lighter note, what kind of sweatshirt did you get? It really was a highlight of the trip for many eighth graders.

AlexandraD: I enjoyed the Peterson House and Ford’s Theatre more than the sweatshirts – and that’s saying something. My favorite part of Ford’s Theater was seeing John Wilkes Booth’s gun – the weapon that killed President Lincoln! That was so cool! I mean, the fact that Lincoln was killed was not cool, but seeing the actual gun was like transporting back through time to 1865! And it was great that the museum in the basement of Ford’s Theater displayed so much information about the Civil War and John Wilkes Booth’s plot. Did you know Major Henry Rathbone, who was a guest of President Lincoln in his booth the night he was shot, later became mentally ill and spent the rest of his life in an asylum?

JakeM: Wow! I had no idea. And isn’t it funny that during that first night in D.C. we went all the way to Chinatown to eat at an Italian place? Vapiano’s – where the appetizer was pizza, the entree was pizza, and the dessert was pizza. BTW, I had 9 slices..

AlexandraD: Yes, the pizza was awesome, but not as awesome as my favorite memorial which we visited the next day. .

JakeM: Let me guess – the FDR Memorial?

AlexandraD: Yes! How did you know?

JakeM: You’ve only mentioned it like 57 times since we left.

AlexandraD Hey, this is a No Place for Hate school, Jake – no judging allowed. Anyway, I loved the beautiful layout and all the quotes from President Roosevelt that still resonate today. Christian Baldari agreed with me: “I really liked the FDR memorial – he was a great president despite all his adversity. He had to overcome his polio and it empowered me because he could overcome such a life threatening illness. He had to be an excellent leader [to] get [America] out of the Great Depression.” Baldari said his favorite FDR quote is, “‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” because I strongly believe in the main principles America was founded on, such as freedom, independence, and civil rights; things FDR believed in as well.”

JakeM: That is a great quote. One of the highlights for me was visiting Mount Vernon, the place where George Washington himself lived. It was the exact same house, you know. There were so many rooms, especially for that time and era. I never knew that mirrors had to be cut in such small pieces because of the limited technology available at the time. It was so cool to see the room where Washington himself died. The movie inside the museum about Americans’ struggle to become an independent country was pretty interesting, too. We then visited Old Town Alexandria for lunch, walking down the cobblestone streets and red brick sidewalks of the beautiful historic district.

AlexandraD: You know what else was pretty cool?

JakeM: The fact that I scored a free bag of M&M’s at the airport?

AlexandraD: No! Mr. Hagy said this  “was one of the best [trips] ever” because “I’ve never seen a group of eighth grades so interested and so well behaved.” And how did you get a free bag of M&Ms at the airport?

JakeM: I don’t know – someone left them on one of the seats.

AlexandraD: And you ate them?!

JakeM: They were unopened!

AlexandraD: Gross. Anyway, do you think you can list all the monuments?

JakeM: Definitely. The Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Memorial, Korean Memorial, and Iwo Jima Memorial.

AlexandraD: Actually, the only monument is the Washington Monument.

JakeM:  Okay – you got me there. Remember when we all went to the Arlington National Cemetery (which btw I think at least should be a national monument)? I remember when we saw the Kennedy Burial Site that had the granite tombstones of the Kennedy Family and the Eternal Flame in John F. Kennedy’s honor. It flickered in the crisp morning air upon the dew-frosted hill.

AlexandraD: Wow – you’re getting a little poetic there, Jake.

JakeM: It was a beautiful sight!

AlexandraD: I get it, I get it. Anyway, after seeing the soldiers’ dedication to continuously guard the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the wreath laying ceremony became just that more special. It commemorates the fallen, unnamed soldiers who fought in America’s various wars: WWI, WWII, Korean, Vietnam, etc. The soldiers always guard it in respect to those soldiers. There are three different tombs. Eighth graders James Richardson, Caroline Moody, Dora Page, and Annabelle Ford were chosen to be the wreath bearers through the essay contest that we had earlier on in the year. It’s such an honor to be involved in the ceremony… I wish I could have been one of them. Eighth grader and wreath bearer James Richardson thought that “the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was my favorite part of the trip. It touched and inspired me. It made me feel like if we went through such a hard time, I could do it too.”

JakeM: D.C. was such a great experience for the entire 8th grade- students and teachers alike. Even though I’ve only been here for less than a semester, I feel like I really bonded with some of my classmates and I had an amazing time.

AlexandraD: You might say Washington D.C. was a capital trip.

JakeM: That was the worst pun I’ve ever heard.

AlexandraD: Can’t say I didn’t try…

JakeM: True, true.

AlexandraD: Anyway, the eighth grade really enjoyed D.C.. I’m sure that the seventh grade will have the same feelings about the trip next year!

JakeM: They will if they’re on Bus 1.

Alexandra: Oh, whatever…