So we
rolled into Richmond, VA in the late afternoon on Tuesday. We were staying with my good friend and Sorority
sister Jessica Lewis who is getting her masters in Hospital Administration there
at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her
and her roomie Katy live in a chic downtown apartment (like I can see the
capital building from her window, kind of downtown) which they kindly allowed
Charlie and I to invade for a few days.
We went on a quick tour of downtown before heading off to explore a haunted
on campus buildings with one of her professors as a guide. I wont lie, it sufficiently creeped me out and
I clung to Jessica because she had the flashlight the entire time. It was all very appropriate for the night
before Halloween! The next morning while
Jessica was in class, I went for a run around the capital grounds and through a
bit of downtown.
Sadly I caught a cold a few days
before and wasn’t feeling up to a big Halloween bash so when Jess got out of
class we went and wandered Cary Town where we hit up a Goodwill and I got a
pair of $10 boots! Yahoo! We made dinner
in her apartment and polished off the evening with a movie.
The next
afternoon after a nice long walk on around Maymont Park, Jessica and I spent a
few hours wandering the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, which of course we only
saw a fraction of and never made it off the first floor. When we were absolutely famished, we satisfied
our hunger with good old rice and beans from a Hispanic Dia de los Muertos
festival a few blocks from her apartment.
On Friday
before I had to leave, we slept in and had lunch at Panera. I was so sad to leave my dear friend but we
made future travel plans and I see no reason why I couldn’t come back for a
visit because Richmond is so lovely! Upon
arriving to Washington DC (that’s right, I drove in downtown DC, what!?) I
could only think of one term to describe it: concrete jungle. The buildings towered and the people bustled
and I gawked, as any good tourist would do as I drove by the jutting Washington
Monument. Sadly, I only had one full day
our nations fair capital, so I had to cram in a dozen or so monuments sandwiched
between hot laps at the National Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Museum of
Natural History. Something really great about DC is that all the sights and
museums are free. You can literally
spend hours wandering the streets around the National Mall and only pay for the
calories to keep your legs truckin’. I
hope they never change that because it is a true asset to the city.
Unfortunately,
the glamor and history cannot cover up the stifling drabness of the place. It strikes me as odd the epicenter of freedom
is so unmistakably uniform. Everyone
wears black and gray and white and brown and they match all the buildings and
all the cars and streets and attitudes. I won’t say its citizens are unpleasant
because that denotes some kind of action, when what I experienced was a lack
there of…of anything. No hello’s or good
morning’s or smiles or waves… so I’ll just say they are much less
friendly/helpful/warm/nice than their southern counterparts. 
Don’t get me wrong; there is a lot
to respect in those individuals who work in the professional atmosphere of the
city, but I have never understood why there are so few string tying professionalism
to human kindness. Feel free to disagree, and although seeing the US capital is
worth the trip, one day was enough for me and on Sunday I headed North to my
Grandparents in Connecticut.
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