Twenty

Birthday. Yay. It would be a lie to say that I don't let anyone know in advance when it's going to be my birthday. If you know me well enough, you'll realise that I find birthdays so utterly exciting, a firm believer that they should be celebrated and the birthday-bearing person treated like a King or Queen to the fullest extent. When Jeppe learnt of this he remarked with shocking horror and a look of disgust; "Oh god, you're one of those people that love Christmas too, aren't you?"

Annie not terribly thrilled at the photo-taking

I woke up, and my lovely friends greeted me with presents, cards and birthday love. It was wonderful. Although it was just a regular day, there's always something more special when it's your birthday - something I'm going to conclude as just in the air. The only thing that was slightly bad that morning was that Javi cleverly manoeuvred his way into taking my allocated shower slot. Although we had a verbal dispute through the bathroom door - it turned out to be ok because when he got out, I walked into a fogged-up bathroom that revealed a special happy birthday message written on the mirror, with a picture of what strangely represented a cake. I think. So that made my heart sing.

And then Pedro carried my bag about 4 blocks to where we could store them for the day. We argued the entire way about feminism and excessive-luggage-packing but it was ok. It was my birthday.

Our hostel. Not even kidding when I say the worst hostel I have ever stayed in.

The whole troupe made such an effort my birthday, and for that I will be eternally grateful. I know I yacked on about it last post, but to have found people that I would call true friends, people that I am able to spend so much time with and engage in a deeper level of friendship with, is awesome. The relationships I've formed with people on exchange have delved deeper than a conversational, pass-in-the-hallway, have-the-occasional-drink-with kind of thing. I would honestly rate them all as top blokes, which makes it so much harder when I have to say goodbye. Also, considering my birthday didn't consist of skyping my family, buying myself a muffin from Costco and taking selfies of myself in a party hat - I can't complain.

We headed out to the Pentagon and the September 11 memorial, which was...nice? I never quite know how to describe memorials and such, like, they're surely not supposed to be 'nice' and you can't really take pictures of yourself standing in front on them smiling. For example, the Jewish Holocaust Memorial in the centre of Berlin; the first time I visited it (naïve 16-yr-old) I emailed my mum excitedly saying that we had a really "cool" day visiting the memorial and it was "totally awesome!". Upon reflection - that sounds incredibly disrespectful, and somewhat wrong. Also, upon reflection, 'naïve 16-yr-old' is utter bollocks - I still speak like that. 

Anywho, the security was really tight at the Pentagon, and we were shouted at several times. We were also totally reckless with taking photos...although Pedro refused to be in any in case they ended up online and the FBI tracked him down and threw him in jail for a criminal offense. But me?

I like to live on the edge;

#offdarailz

 The memorial was really...tranquil (#better). Because it was so far out of the city, it was more eerie, and although the sun shone down, the personal stories of those who lost their lives provoked strong emotions and detailed discussions about terrorism, the US and pacifists. 

 

And here, we have me being a creep, and treating Javi in a rather peculiar manner.

 

Speaking of peculiar actually, there was this glorious hill not far off, it's luscious green grass and decadent slope called me. So I rolled down in in a most shameful manner, doing both myself and my country proud. I think there's a video floating around somewhere, I just hope that it never resurfaces on the internet.

For lunch I chose the most rockin' place to eat in China Town, we ate dumplings and noodles till we had to be rolled out of the restaurant. It was of course, called;

The afternoon was splendid. It turns out that my friends had been planning to sneak around and buy me stuff for my birthday, but me, being completely and utterly oblivious, kept popping up when they were in the shop, or I would head to purchase the very things that they had picked out for me. Apparently I was an utter nuisance and made my birthday very difficult to organise behind my back. Sure, today it was a bad thing, but I know that in the future if any conspiracy is trying to pass under my nose, there will be no doubt that I'll be either consciously or unconsciously aware of it.

Asian Liason???

Xchangers

#classicamerica

I'm actually still laughing, weeks later about this. You wonder why the government is shutdown? Look who's in charge. Many people have said that I've blended into the rug on the floor in the last one;

 We bought coffees and spent the afternoon enjoying the sun outside the (real) Whitehouse. Ha, how bizzare it is to say that we spent the afternoon 'enjoying the atmosphere' outside Obama's crib. Mental.

New protesters

 We had done an incredible amount of walking by this stage, but we found the strength to trek out to the Martin Luther King Memorial before we had to head home. It was super pretty by night, a little dicey walking through the parks, but you know.

Mighty Martin

We walked for a good two hours home. It was terrible. When we finally arrived back, after a huge day, we collapsed. Literally thought that I wouldn't live to see the end of my 20th birthday. We packed up and chipped off to the station at around 9pm, saluting the city goodbye on the way, to face the long train ride back to Boston.

It was a super birthday weekend, with fantastic people. I mean, I celebrated my 20th birthday in Washington DC. Now that's monumental.