livin’ the American Dream

Fast, fast, fast, not gonna stay in this shithole of a dorm one second longer than necessary.
Generator’s our savior.
Spinach+Feta Croissant and a chocolate cake from down the Street.
Half an hour drive to Great Falls just outside DC, at the triangle border to Maryland and Virginia. Ananka, mum and I are going right along the waterfall and waterline. There’s a deer less than 8 meters next to us in the forest, we’re climbing up and down the stones, fresh, breathable air surrounds us. What a nice trip right in the outskirts of the capital of the United States of America.
Our plan was to go to the zoological Smithsonian afterwards but a rumbling stomach thwarts our plans.
Fancy lunch at Dupont Circle in an Italian corner restaurant and then a sweet treat from the bakery around the corner.
In the afternoon (multiple repetitions from my side, mum gets annoyed…) the temperature is quite pleasant and we say goodbye to DC by visiting one of the fathers of this nation: the great Lincoln (16th president) monument at National Mall (thx for the recommendation, aunt Lisa 🥰) - the statue there is featured in many movies and now we’ve seen it in real life.
Long trip to the in capitol quotation marks “bus stop” where I almost threw up out of fear - to be murdered, robbed or things so worse I don’t want to imagine.

Small foray for everyone who’s interested:
We went through the whole town of DC to the east to get to some Shell gas station where our bus was supposed to leave at 10:45pm, as German as we are we planned to be there at least 1+ hour before. Worked out. Though at some point in the metro bus only odd figures started to enter. Either everybody really worked up, worn out or on more drugs in their life than countable. Anyways… it was dark, the atmosphere was awwwwwwesome and we contemplated to either stand in a corner of the rocked down shell station or sit outside next to the cockroaches, second guessing our life choices. Outside it was. A gang of motorcycles passes past us, whooping and only riding on one wheel.
Then a loud noise from above and a helicopter with searching lights fixating on our surrounding and then on us. Even better. Two minutes later 7 police cars with sirens on race right past us. Then two police cars and officers storm the gas station, searching in every single litter can for what could only be part of a drug deal. Didn’t really feel safe at first, I started talking to the woman next to us who could only speak Spanish and tried to calm myself down. When the last police car took off 15 minutes later I was actually hoping for it to stay there till the bus would reach.
All in all, never want to have that kind of experience again. I’ve been in such situations way too often for my young life.En savoir plus