July 6, 2014
Today is the final day that the three of us will spend together for a very long time. Megan and I fully plan on going to see Brenda in Sarajevo, but with Megan's teaching schedule, and the fact that I don't want to go when it's cold, means we won't actually go over there until next summer. It's going to be a long year.
We spent most of the day lounging around Brenda's apartment, doing little but eating and watching movies, including The Goonies and Jumanji. I can't believe Megan had never seen Goonies. That was a staple of my childhood, and it was unreal to think of people near my age that hadn't seen in.
After a delicious Mexican lunch that helped to cure some hangovers, we started the unpleasant task of packing and saying our goodbyes. Not going to lie, it was difficult to keep it together. Brenda decided to stay at her apartment and not go with us to the airport, and I think that was the best idea ever. There really was no point, and a teary goodbye is best in a quiet hallway instead of a crowded Metro platform.
Seriously though, when Megan and I got into the elevator, we both lost it a little bit. It's never easy saying goodbye to a friend, knowing you won't see them in person for a very long time. I also realize people do it all the time, but still. We had all the feels at that moment. All of them. Every single one, all trying to escape at once.
We managed to pull ourselves together and get to the airport with time to spare. Since we no longer had any use for them, we paid it forward to people arriving at the airport by giving them our Metro passes. There was only a little bit of money left, but at least it kept people from having to purchase one for their own.
Our flight ended up being delayed, which wasn't all that terrible. I already knew I'd be coming in late to work the next day. (Dammit, I knew I should have taken the day off!) We ended up with another small plane, so we gate checked our bags (hello to no baggage check fees!) and quickly realized there would be a baby and a toddler on board.
And wouldn't you know it, they sat right next to us. Great. It wasn't bad though. It was a woman by herself with her two small children, and I could already tell she was incredibly nervous about flying. She did a great job keeping the baby from getting fussy - in fact, the little girl slept for the majority of the trip. The toddler on the other hand had a bit of a difficult time using his inside voice.
What was terrible is when we landed and he threw up. All over himself. And then we got stuck on the runway. While, yes, I felt terrible for the little guy and his mother, smelling vomit from two feet away in an airplane that is no longer circulating air is a pretty good way to end up with more vomit. The mom was great, and she was able to hand off her baby to her sister a few rows back, and had her little boy cleaned up in no time. She deserves a medal. Not only for cleaning him up, but doing so quickly to avert any further mess from the rest of the plane.
Well, that concludes my trip to DC. I had a blast with my friends, and they made this birthday very memorable. Despite the fact that 35 isn't all I envisioned it to be, spending time earlier in the year with Meredith and Lisa, and then my actual birthday with Brenda and Megan, it makes a girl feel pretty special about herself.
Big thanks to Brenda for her hospitality and Megan for going with me, and to the both of them for just being hot bitchez. I'm going to go have a good cry now that they're both gone, and then I'll be fine. :)
Bingo update: So, I wasn't able to complete some of the bingo squares. :( But, it wasn't for lack of trying. We figured there would be plenty of people demonstrating, protesting or forming some sort of march, but oddly enough, we didn't really see anything. Except for a little old lady sitting at a table with lots of posters about Israel. She wasn't talking or doing anything, so we didn't think standing next to her table really counted. Also nowhere to be found were people asking for petition signatures.
They kind of made it hard by adding "Go to the Macedonian Embassy" on the list, especially when Brenda didn't even know where it was. We did look it up, and it was nowhere close to any of the places we went. I totally would have gone though, if it had been closer. Although with my luck, Costa would have been waiting outside for me! (Read my Italy/Rome blog to find out about Costa!)
I didn't end up buying a drink for a veteran, though I absolutely would have done so. As hard as it is to believe, people didn't have the word "veteran" tattooed on their foreheads, so unless I was going to ask every single person I met if they were a veteran, this one was a bit difficult to accomplish.
And the final one on the list was to find currency from my birth year. I may not have accomplished it, but it wasn't for lack of trying. The three of us checked every single coin we had between us, and asked additional people wherever we went, but 1979 was very elusive this weekend. One girl even found a pile of pennies on the ground near a parking meter and checked every single one of them. Brenda's friend Ryan sent her a picture a few days after we left of a coin he had found. Although it was from 1978 (whoa buddy, don't age me an additional year), I appreciate the gesture of him continuing to look after we left!
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