Moving to D.C. became much more of task than my mom and I expected. Wow. The number of insane things that have occurred within these last few days have just blown me away. I do have to say that I've hated and loved it, but I s'pose that's all apart of an experience.
Day 1
We traveled about 10 hour to get here and on Friday when we got to campus I had to get into my ASL mode. I can't say that I've felt prepared for this moment but it kinda kicked into gear.
Problem #1 We check in and we're running super late. We try to call the car rental company to extend our time a bit so I can take up all my things but they had already charged us an extra day. Well crap.
Problem #2 I see that they're not allowing guests to stay in the dorms until September so I ask about my mom. They said, "Well, she's really not allowed, she can stay maybe one night..." Awesome.
Problem #3 I forgot my microwave. Some may not find that a problem, but a microwave is my survival tool in college. Let me begin here...on our way to DC I literally called over 10 Goodwills on the way. NO ONE had microwaves. How ridiculous. I had lost faith in Goodwill at that point.
Anywho, the day we arrived we decided.."hey, since we're payin another 100 bucks for the rental car, might as well take it out for a microwave search.." Minor issue-my mom FREAKS out in traffic. Needless to say, we're in DC traffic, my mom is at the edge of our seat attempting to turn left and we get stuck in the middle of the intersection as it becomes a red light..cars coming in every direction. Ha. I thought that was it. Lets just say my moms not much of an aggressive driver and it took her a minute to get out of that jam.. shortly after we were pulled over by what she thought was the FBI and questioned about what exactly we were trying to accomplish. Sheesh.
Miracle #1 We finally find a Goodwill in DC. We walk in and the guy asked "is this your first time here"..? They all gave us a good ol' employee round of applause. What a friendly place. Then we found around 5 or 6 microwaves just hangin out... decent ones too. I was seriously stoked. The same guy that welcomed us helped us test it, find a plate and took it to our car. There are friendly people out there...
Problem #4 I clicked on the wrong hotel. Some how, between the lack of food, sleep and hectic day I had opened up so many windows looking for a hotel online that I ended up reserving a hotel 45 minutes away! What the heck. I could've just died right there. I mean really? The last thing I wanted to do at that point was travel.
Miracle #2 We arrive to the Red Roof Inn and the attendant was super nice! She had so many suggestions as to where we should eat, what we could do.. so friendly.
Miracle #3 Food. Food food food....if anything could make my day better it would be food. We split a meal at Logan's for 20 bucks. First, our waitress was awesome, the deck was great to sit outside at and the food just hit the spot. I hadn't really eatin all day so I guess anything would've been great, but this was UHmazing. We had steak, shish-ka-bob shrimp, a sweet potatoe, salad and of course their famous bread. I'd recommend that any day.
Thoughts on the end of the day...every day comes with blessings, or miracles, and really crappy problems too. Its inevitable to avoid. Sometimes you just have to take a step back and notice the miracles and not just the problems.......can be, so hard.
Day 2
We took the metro back after returning the rental car. We stopped at a few places: chinatown, the union station..it was nice to show my mom the good sides of the city. Then, at one point after my mom had already gotten through the metro gate I had to go back to fill up my card. Well, there was someone standing by the farecard machine and he was bothering everyone for money. Sometimes I wish I could help them but this guy was just over the top. First off, he got so close to me I could smell his alky breathe...yea, this guy really needs money...he asked me if I had money to spare but I said I only had my credit card on me. Lied. I continued to check out my card to see if I could put more money on it.
He kept asking me questions..
"are you Jewish?"
well no...
"well you're a mean Bitch"
..excuse me??..
"you heard me"
...please leave me alone..
"um, you need to apologize for ignoring me". I just kept ignoring him. Then he started staring at me.."what are you, like a 34B?"
Did he really just ask about my chest? If he gets it right does he think he's going to get a prize? This guy can't be serious. I just bit back and told him he needed to stop bothering me.
Then he moved on to someone else. I quickly tried to reach for my cash to put more money in. He came back "this one doesn't take cash, idiot"....wow... I moved onto the next.
I moved onto the next and he continued hovering. This guy just wouldn't give up. By the end of it I got cash back, he asked again for money and for his pathetic nature I gave him a buck....Did he seriously deserve that? I couldn't believe myself. Part of me feels awful for people like him but in most cases its from their own mistakes they end up begging people for cash. He did not earn nor deserve my money...all that I did was fuel his "job" of begging. Next time I'm going to be a lot more aggressive about being approached.
The saddest part of this whole thing..? Leaving my baby, Chuck, who will be all growed up by the time I return...
Whoah Whoah Whoah...this is a Deaf College? Ha. What was I thinking? Today I had four classes (consisting of about an hour& a half of full blown, hard core ASL) and yes my friend, my eyes were tired. I felt like pulling them out of my face and giving them a quick deep tissue massage...but there's no time for that. I was on the go, trying to sign, trying to understand. My boy back at home always offered me eyeball massages, now I regret ever rejecting those offers.
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