Washington D.C. - a boring capital?

by Julia Jäger (Germany)

I didn't expect to find USA

A trip to D.C. didn’t sound like too much fun to me. So I ask you, what pops into your mind when you think about the United States capital? For me it’s politics, monuments and museums. But this trip was nothing close to what I expected… It started out great when we missed our Flixbus in New York City. Very promising. After waiting in a cold container for hours we finally got on a bus and made our way to the nations capital. The problem: It was around 2.30 am and two of my travelmates hadn’t booked their beds for the night yet. Luckily the hostel owner let us check in but not only that – the owners younger brother offered to make us pancakes. At 3 in the morning! He said we looked hungry - and gosh, we were starving! Around noon, with the smell of light rain in the air, we made our way to the National Mall. My travelmates (which I met at the bus stop for the first time in my life) were girls from all over the world: we got Anna from Germany, Yu from China and a girl with the great name of Joy from Thailand. They’ve never been to Washington D.C. and so I, a 19 year old girl from Germany with absolutly no idea what’s going on, became the travel guide. I spent most of the day explaining that not every sightly white building is the white house. (“Is that the White House?” “No, that’s the Capitol Building” “But it is white!”) We stopped at the Washington Monument (“Nope, this is not the White House”) and learned that we had to be there early in the morning to get tickets to go up the monument. After arguing a few minutes the guard had pity and let us in without tickets. Standing in line I got nervous, heights and elevators isn’t a good combination for me, especially not after watching Spiderman: Homecoming. Well, I just hoped that Spidey would save us in case the elevator breaks… On top of the monument I forgot all about my fears. The view was just fantastic! I thought D.C. would look boring compared to the million everlasting lights of New York City. But that absolutely wasn’t the case; all the reflection pools and gardens looked so perfectly arranged. Everything was made by men but with so much natural beauty in it, the monuments built for eternity. Back at the hostel we started cooking dinner and soon realized we had way too much food: Pasta with tomato sauce and some “not spicy” Chinese noodles. Well, they were not spicy for my Chinese friend but I needed a good cup of milk after they got me to try just a tiny bit. Instead of just keeping it for the next day, we invited everyone in the hostel to join us. We shared our food and people shared their stories. There was a backpacker from Australia, a couple students from France and a women’s rights activist from California. Everyone sat together, ate together and laughed together even though we were strangers from completely different continents. Go on a hostel organized pub crawl – was a field on my travel Bingo. Equipped with a driver’s license from an Italian girl I just met, we hit the streets. The hostel owner got all of us into what looked like an ordinary sports bar, but then through some doors, up some stairs…to a rooftop bar! Not too crowded and with plants on the floor, plants on the walls and plants coming from the ceiling you felt like you were in a park. And man, did we party. This trip surprised me in many ways: I experienced different forms of just plain kindness and friendship towards people I just met. For me hostels were always just cheap places to sleep but in this hostel I found a community. I learned not to judge a place by just the expectations I have because in the end everything is different. I expected “Museum City” to be cold and boring but it turned out I was completely wrong about that.