Sightseeing and the free concert on the Mall

January 18, 2009

We woke up at six and took showers. We went down to the second floor of our hotel to eat our breakfast. Our food was questionable, but it was a buffet, and I had to get my money’s worth out of this trip, so I loaded my plate with runny eggs, mediocre bacon, and dull potatoes.

We left the hotel at seven to go to Arlington National Cemetery. On the way, our tour guide informed us that President-elect Barack Obama was going to be visiting the cemetery at the same time we were, so we had to make some minor itinerary adjustments. Thanks Obama. The new plan: we will go the Pentagon memorial, and then we will go to Arlington at around eleven, when Obama should be gone.

The Pentagon memorial was an uncluttered, somber affair dedicated to those who died in the plane crash at the Pentagon on 9/11. The memorial consisted of these really post-modern benches that were facing all sorts of directions with a victim’s name on the side. Behind the memorial was the Pentagon, and compared to other government buildings in the area this one was extremely dull. I was surprised and a little befuddled when I saw my peers taking pictures of it, this building clearly lacked any sort of personality and was definitely NOT picture-worthy.

We made our way back to the bus, and a bunch of Capitol policemen stopped us. Apparently our tour guide forgot to tell us that it is illegal to take pictures of the outside of the Pentagon. The policemen went through a few of the student’s cameras and deleted the guilty pictures.

We disembarked from the Pentagon memorial and went to Arlington. We saw the marine memorial and took pictures etc. We continued to Arlington, but traffic was stopped on the freeway exit at Arlington. On the overpass we could see about twenty suburbans with tinted windows and sirens, along with a helicopter. We decided to continue to Arlington on foot, for it was only around the corner.

We trudged up to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and at the entrance there was a mounty blocking our way. He said that we could not see the tomb today, although he never told us why. We eventually found out that Joe Biden had wanted to stay a little longer at Arlington, so they just blocked off wherever he was. Thanks Joe.

We rerouted to the Kennedys’ graves. We saw the eternal flame in the middle of Patrick, John, Jackie, and Daughter—the daughter died at stillbirth, and they had not named her. After a short stint at the gift shop we got back on to bus to catch our appointment at the Holocaust Museum.

I was the only student in my group to have seen the Holocaust museum, so I knew what I was in for. It’s like seeing the most depressing movie on the day your dog has died. Unfortunately, we only had an hour to go through the museum, and it could have taken six hours. After we sped through, our group decided to go see the free concert at the national mall. We soon realized that good seats would be impossible, because there were thousands of people crammed into that small stretch of grass.

As the national anthem rang across the loudspeakers, every single person in the mall was singing, I felt so proud, so pleased I got goose bumps. Then I thought of how weak we can be if such a large group of people could be so easily manipulated to feel an emotion. It was scary. The concert was pretty good, there was a bunch of famous speakers who, instead of writing their own speeches, just quoted other people’s speeches. It was like hearing the patriotic quote book, the most cliché, vanilla, and hopeful quotes laid siege to our ears. It was so uplifting, it was sickening.

We decided to leave early, so we went to the Smithsonian metro station. The place was swarming with people. I think I saw at least five fights break out; no matter how great your revolution of change is, people will still fight over a subway ticket. It took about forty minutes to navigate the subway system, and we got off at the last stop in shady grove. We ate dinner at California Pizza kitchen, which was a little ironic. We got to bed around eleven after a vigorous game of three flies up in the pool. Tomorrow’s forecast: snow.

Dylan Svihus, 17, Carmel High School