Washington D.C.: Day 1

Wednesday morning, June 1, I boarded the plane to go on my very first trip to D.C.! This was my first trip by myself to a place I was unfamiliar with. I had a map, and my phone has GPS so I was feeling pretty ok with the situation. I wasn't scared, I was excited! I was excited to be able to figure things out for myself. At first, my plane was delayed for about 30 minutes, it made me a little anxious because I was so so so excited to get out of Utah. Finally we were all boarded and ready to go! Four hours later, we were landing in the nations capital :) We landed and I got off the plane with a huge grin on my face, I probably looked silly because I seriously could not stop smiling. Now I hadn't really planned how I would get from the airport to the University of Maryland, where I was going to stay, I figured I would just 'wing it' and figure it out as I went. I did know that I would have to take the Metro (the subway) for part of the trip, but I didn't even know if there was a stop close to where I needed to go.

I stepped outside of the terminal and nearly died. It was 97 degrees and there was almost 100% humidity and I could not breathe. I stopped to catch my breath and then realized that I was already soaked in my own sweat...gross. I looked around at the craziness around me and tried to figure out how to buy my Metro pass, talk about confusing. I went over to the main desk thing and with a smile on my face I told the man, "I have no idea what I'm doing, I need to get to the University of Maryland and I need some help" He laughed at me, I laughed at myself. He explained to me how to find my route and how much money to put in the machine. He said, "Now go over there and buy your ticket and come back here and I will explain to you what to do". So I went over, bought the ticket and came back. The kind man explained to me what I needed to do next, which turned out to be extremely simple, and I was on my way, sweat, luggage, smile and all. :)

I rode the Metro, did everything I was told to do, followed all the stops along the way with my map. It came to my stop and I got off. I was thinking that I would walk off the Metro, go upstairs and BAM! the college would be right there!!!.....boy was I in for a surprise.

This is what I saw, not a college in sight. Not to mention, it had started to pour rain while I had been riding underground. I almost started laughing out loud, all the while I'm thinking to myself, "silly Heather, it's not going to be THAT easy" so I pulled the phone out, and put "Queen Anne's Park" into the map/GPS thing because I was pretty sure that is the place I needed to be to check in. I also told it that I would be walking because I figured it couldn't be too far away because the stop I got off at was named "College Park/University of Maryland"... HA! GPS answer: Walking Dstance 123.3 miles, Time: 1 Day 16 Hours. I'm sure you can all see my eyes bulge out at this point haha, surely this can't be right. My mind starts going through all of the scenarios of how I could possibly get to where I'm going, I surely could not afford a cab ride for that long, so I trekked back down the stairs to talk to another man at the help desk. He informed me that I just needed to go back up the stairs and catch the Shuttle Bus, and it would take me to the University. Thank goodness for the help desk men!! I thought for sure I had messed up on something. I boarded the right bus(at first I almost got on the wrong one) and off we went! As I was riding along, I realized I had no clue what stop to get off at, so I kept riding, waiting for a sign (from God). We passed through some gates that said "University of Maryland" so I figured any stop withing this vicinity would be close. I waited and when the bus stopped and a decent amount of people got off, I followed, hoping this was a good choice. I went in the nearest building to find out where the heck I was, I found a little convenience store and went inside to ask the guys in there how I could get to where I was going. I told them I needed help finding Queen Anne's Park, and with a puzzled look on their faces said "Queen Anne's Park? I've never even heard of that" REALLY!? I said, "let me find my paperwork and check but I'm pretty sure that's where I'm supposed to be" They pulled out a map of the campus and I pulled out my papers and said "Oh it's actually Queen Anne's Hall" "Ohhh, ok, that is just up the hill a little bit. Here it is, take this map" I'm thinking, SERIOUSLY? you couldn't connect the dots between Queen Anne's Park and Queen Anne's Hall? Oh well... at least I'm in the right spot. So I ventured back outside, back into the nasty hot humidity, away from the air conditioning :( I walked and walked, toting my rolling bag behind me, starting to feel a little lost with all the curvy roads and sidewalks, just when I think I'm in the wrong spot, I find this:

HALLELUJAH! I'm almost there. I finally found the famous Queen Anne's Hall and checked in and got my keys and found my room. Just as I was walking into my room, I get a panicked text from my mom "Are you ok?" She hadn't heard from me since I landed and she knew I had that "No Fear" attitude, and that I could possibly be very lost. The rest of the evening is relatively uneventful, other than a quick run to McDonalds before they closed to get some food because I hadn't eaten all day and they were the only thing open and close.
I met my roommate Carly, who is awesome! After we both showered the nastiness off, we both climbed into bed and fell asleep quickly, trying to get some sleep before the early morning adventures began....
To Be Continued



*peace out girl scout*