Hopey's Amazing American Trip to Americanland!

HELLO THERE. AS IT HAS BEEN KNOW, I HAVE MADE A TRIP TO THE AMERICAN NATIONAL CAPITAL OF WASHINGTON, THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

I HAD A VERY FUN TIME THERE.

Firstly, these◊ are the peers and teachers I was cruising with.

Anyway. I was stopped at immigration. Both airports.

At Heathrow I was told that I had "visa issues". This was stupid, because I DIDN'T NEED A VISA TO ENTER AMERICA. The lady basically scanned my boarding card and passport several times, called someone, and then scanned again and then said I was free to go.

At Baltimore (because our flight got re-routed from Washington Dulles) I was subject to a ten-minute wait in a paint-less room, with very little to look at. I sincerely thought I was up for an anal cavity. But I faced worse.

They subject me to a twenty-minute interrogation. WHO ARE YOU WHERE ARE YOU FROM WHAT IS YOUR SCHOOL LIKE WHERE IS YOUR SCHOOL WHO ARE YOUR FAMILY TELL ME ABOUT YOUR PARENTS WHERE ARE THEY FROM WHO ARE YOU WITH DO YOU KNOW ANYONE IN AMERICA WHO ARE THEY WHERE DO THEY LIVE DO YOU LIKE THEM etc etc etc.

Luckily, when flying outbound from Washington Dulles, I didn't - remarkably - get stopped nor searched. However, at Heathrow, I had "visa issues" even though I was returning to the country.

ANYWAY. BACK TO THE STORY.

My parents had given me $200. It was up to me how to spend them.

The first thing I found interesting was how cheap food was - in pound terms. In dollar terms, things seemed to be quite expensive. I was regularly spending 10 dollars per meal.

The second thing that was annoying was the sales taxes. Not the rate (6 per cent is very low), but the fact that I had to mentally add it on. For our group, the biggest way we spent money was (accidentally) assuming the labelled price was also the sale price.

I did many things on our trip to DC. However, I could not take photos of many things, due to the fact that three-quarters of the places I visited had a "no photography rule", especially the Comedy Club that we visited.

Speaking of rules, our group were split into four bedrooms. We had One Rule. Now, consider the fact that we were all adolescent males, and you will guess what the One Rule is.

Oh, btw, these◊ are my roommates, eating our final breakfast together. I am not particularly well-received by the Oriental person making obscenities at the camera.

Anyway, the DC grid pattern was very helpful in working out where everything relative was to each other. For example, the nearest at&t was on 12 & F St, and my hotel was on 11 & E St.

The first thing I noticed about DC was the streets. The streets were incredibly clean. For a major city, this was amazing. For a city with 650 000 people, that was even amazing-er.

The second thing I noticed was how polite and friendly everyone was. Seriously. Everywhere I went, people actually talked to me. Whenever I got lost, people stopped to give me directions. I fell down a couple of times on the slippery pavement, and people stopped to ask me if I was okay.

I would never receive this type of treatment on British streets. I don't have a clue how we're supposed to be a country of polite people.

The days were mostly packed full of things we did.

On Tuesday, we took a walking tour of DC. It was so freezing and so goddamn cold, that I seriously wanted to go the fuck to the hotel and sleep. However, we did see The DC Wizards v the Toronto Raptors◊. Both sides played◊ [[

On Wednesday, we got to the Scotus at 07.00. We didn't get in until 12.00. Not only that, but we only saw 20 min of the case. We were out in the cold for FIVE HOURS. Fuck me, then.

On Thursday, we did a bunch of other things. Oh, and in the evening, we were supposed to see the DC Capitals v NJ Devils on ice hockey, but they ran out of tickets. Indeed, it got to the point where an army of touts were 'following us down the street. We decided to play pool and bowling anyway.

On Friday, I went shopping.

Anyway, the grid pattern was kinda interesting. Especially when I saw this◊.

Other things I saw:

Because I wanna be known I'm a Government Employee.◊

JUST SO YOU KNOW, WE'RE SECRET. SHHHH.◊

HEY, JUST SO YOU KNOW, THIS NATION WAS FOUNDING ON IRONY.◊

The city looks so pretty during the sundown.◊

Hey, British kids! You can't come here!◊

Fuck yeah. I played motherfucking pool◊ for the first time, and I won!]]

Monumental things I saw:

The Hill Never Stops for Rain.◊

... And I Have a Camera.◊

A Great Leader... and Lincoln.◊

National and District.◊

King and Prime Minister.◊

Fought for Nothing But Fallen Friends.◊

Wars Become History. Memories Don't.◊

There's a bunch of other things I left out, but I can't actually remember. Someone ask me questions about my trip to jog my memory.

So you took a lot of pictures? (Phantom doesn't ask anything helpful)

Awesome! :D

ᐅᖃᐅᓯᖅ ᐊᑕᐅᓯᖅ ᓈᒻᒪᔪᐃᑦᑐᖅ

Oh I've got a proper question what did you learn about government and stuff? How was the food was it different? I mean I guess you just got a short time at restaurants but still.

Seems like you had a good time!

@ Buttercup. I learnt the history of AMERICA. It was very interesting. I did enjoy it whenever I went to a museum and the "War of 1812" was mentioned.

(The War of 1812 was when the British and Canadians came down to Washington DC and razed it to the ground, including the White House. Naturally, our class cheered this event).

The food wasn't very much different from here in Britain, I suppose. The portions were larger; most of the food I ate covered the whole plate. A medium Mc Flurry here is just enough to fill me; over there a medium was enough to make my gut feel like it expanded.

Those were pretty much my first reactions,..except unlike you I've never used Baltimore,...always Dulles nonstop or National (with a stop over in St. Louis)

Of course now that I live in Virginia,...it's literally just a quick drive over. (I'd go all the time if I had a license and it didn't take four days to get back home that way)

American cities usually aren't this clean at all,so don't use DC as a pedestal.

Glad you had a good time.

@Hopey I know about the War of 1812 still cool ;).

Oh, oh what other history did you learn?

Oh that big huh? Though I always feel restaurants give me to much food. Like the pancakes always take up the plate, and their dinner plates, which are big, and its sad because I like pancakes.

How America was founded, how the Constitution was born, how the District was chosen, blah blah blah. All very interesting stuff. The War of 1812 was always enjoyable to learn about, again, and again, and again.

Something I'm kinda curious about, you guys stop anywhere in Baltimore before you headed to DC? I remember when my family and I took a trip to DC we stopped there first, and that city is amazing. At least, the part of it by the bay where we were

Also:

You limey bastards

Insert witty and clever quip here. My page, as the database hates my handle.

Nope. Our bus was waiting for us outside the airport.

Also, what was interesting - and confusing - was the fact that everything ran on 12-hour time. While I didn't expect my basketball ticket to be 19.30 (although our sports tickets here do), I did expect the DC Metro, and Baltimore and Dulles airports to display my transit times as 24-h. It was very confusing, considering there were flights leaving at both 10.10 am and 10.10 pm, for example. And the Metro ticket said it was valid from 05.00. I did not know whether that was 05.00 or 17.00 (5.00 pm). Even our tour of the Capitol was valid from 2 pm to 3.30 pm. I expected 14.00 to 15.30.

Yeah, pretty much the only place that uses 24 hour time is hospitals. Also military people here know it. In general I would say most Americans I know, know 24 hour time, they just don't use it.

@Hopey How was the district chosen?

@Wuggles Wait so your airports don't operate on 24 hour time?

edited 24th Feb '13 6:43:10 PM by phantom1

Nope. 12-hour is the standard throughout everything except what was mentioned in the U.S.

Insert witty and clever quip here. My page, as the database hates my handle.

@ Buttercup. The new Federation was to assume the debts of the northern states (incurred during the war), and place the District in the southern states. DC is in the middle of the 13 colonies, but is downstream, ie closer to the southern than the northern states.

Americans are ridiculously polite. They say sorry for anything. It's kinda funny, but cute too. :3

Oneiro! :D

ᐅᖃᐅᓯᖅ ᐊᑕᐅᓯᖅ ᓈᒻᒪᔪᐃᑦᑐᖅ

Zersk! :D

-Glomps Zersk-

Actually... -glomps everyone-

edited 24th Feb '13 7:03:24 PM by HopelessDaydreamer

I hope you had fun on your trip, Hopey! You are so lucky! I've always wanted to go to DC!

I don’t even know anymore.

-Glomps back- X3 Been a while! :D

ᐅᖃᐅᓯᖅ ᐊᑕᐅᓯᖅ ᓈᒻᒪᔪᐃᑦᑐᖅ

If you think we're polite, Canadians are even worse (better?). Also, I've been to Europe twice, and I found Europeans politer than I thought. I mean I was expecting them to hate us Americans and be mean, but they were about as "rude" as New Yorkers, which is to say, not very.

EVERYBODY TALKED TO ME.

EVEN ON THE METRO.

DOOD. NOBODY TALKS TO ME RANDOMLY ON THE BUS.

WHO ARE YOU AMERICANS.

WHY ARE YOU ALL SO POLITE AND WILLING TO TALK ABOUT RANDOM STUFF THAT PASSES MY MIND.

I KNOW!!!! D:

Good lord, they actually do that? Sounds scary. D:

Join us in our quest to play all RPG video games! Moving on to disc 2 of Grandia!

Yeah they do that here to, maybe its a North American thing ~shrug~

@Odd 1 Oh okay.

@Hopey Oh cool :).