Neil is doing an away rotation at Georgetown, so a bunch of us drove up yesterday to hang out with him. We were only there for a total of 21 hours, so the only way we could maximize our experience was to sleep no more than 4 hours. And we managed to cram more fun into those 17 waking hours than I ever thought possible.
First, we braved the oppressive heat to go out in the city, which I've never actually done before. I'm not exaggerating when I say that it was oppressive; the sign in front of the SunTrust bank informed us that despite being midnight, the temperature outside was still 90°F. My favorite part of the night was walking past some random construction equipment near the side of the road. Of course, this made for a perfect Kodak moment.
When we finally decided to quit the bar scene, we made our way over to Jumbo Slice Pizza, known for its enormously sized servings. It was quite delicious and quite filling. Notice how one serving takes up two standard-sized paper plates. I wasn't able to finish eating the crust and angrily threw it down on the ground, much to the ire of Josh and the rest of my companions.
It was past 5am by the time we finally settled into Neil's tiny apartment for some sleep. It wasn't easy fitting seven guys into one room, but somehow we managed. For some strange reason, Randy actually called dibs on sleeping on the floor of the closet. We woke up at 9am to the sound of my alarm, which I don't remember setting. After grabbing some not-cold-enough Gatorades from the CVS next door, we ventured toward the Metro to fulfill Neil's and my dream of going to the National Zoo, one of my favorite places on Earth.
Aside: Neil and I overheard a six-year-old girl in front of us on the Metro station escalator, who stated very matter-of-factly: "Mommy, I can't believe we went the wrong direction and now we're going to the zoo."
The day got off to a slow start, as we didn't see a single animal for the first 20 minutes. We then learned that it was too hot for most of the outside animals, and we ended spending most of the rest of the day at the indoor exhibits. Sadly, my camera was running low on batteries, so I didn't get many pictures of the animals. But I simply had to snap one of this cute and incredibly lazy panda.
The most exciting moment of the day took place when we went to see the Great Apes. One of the female gorillas threw a ball into the air, and while we watched it fly, she ran towards us and slammed her body into the glass. I'm pretty sure we all jumped back, except for Neil, who Randy instinctively pushed forward as a sacrificial offering. Suddenly, the premise behind Planet of the Apes didn't seem so absurd anymore.
After grabbing dinner at Ray's Hell Burger, which I highly recommend to any burger lover out there, we decided it was time to hit the road. Now that we're back and our adventure is over, I'm ready to sleep for a good 12 hours. Maybe tomorrow it will be less than a million degrees, and I won't have to drink two gallons of water in one day just to make up for insensible fluid loss via perspiration.
No comments:
Post a Comment