But the real fun came just a few hours after we "graduated" from Jr. High and boarded the big coach buses that took us to the airport for the much-anticipated eighth grade DC trip.
Now, the DC trip was known as being pretty flipping awesome for two reasons. 1) You get to spend four days and three nights with your best friends and 2) You get to have the "cool" teachers be your parents for those four days and three nights. Little did my ignorant fourteen year old self realize that the trip would turn into much more than an extended sleepover in a different state.
DC is a truly amazing city. Everywhere you turn, there's an opportunity to learn something new about the country that we call home. Whether you know all there is to know about the Lincoln memorial or not, nothing compares to actually standing there and looking out across the reflection pond after admiring Honest Abe's enormous marble feet. If you get the chance to see it for yourself, stand there and pretend it's 1963, and you're watching the same crowd of peaceful segregation protesters that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was as they gathered to listen to his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.
There's a special energy in the air in DC. It's as if you can just feel the significance of all the topics being discussed and decisions that are being made as you drive by buildings like the Capitol or the White House. History takes on a new meaning when you stand in a dark room and attempt to read the original document outlining the rules that have regulated our country since 1789, or the document that's guaranteed our independence from England since 1776.
A new perspective can be taken on war after visiting the Vietnam and Korean war memorials, and especially Arlington National Cemetery. Fourteen year old Niki didn't quite understand the impact that all those fallen soldiers made until she felt the groove of their names carved into the wall, or when she stood at the top of a hill overlooking a sea of snow white grave stones dotting the field below like trees.
When we're young, I think we take our government for granted. It's not until we start to grow and mature that we begin to comprehend the importance of their presence in our everyday lives, and looking back on it, I would love to go back to DC now after learning all that I have about American government and politics. Being in the city where the future of our country is determined brings a new reality to both the past and the present, and although I'm much more mature now, that trip left a great impact on me.
Watching footage of trapped businessmen and women jump from the windows of the Word Trade Center while standing a few feet from a wall covered entirely in front page newspaper clippings from September 12, 2001 made the unforgettable event much more personal. The same result occurs from a visit to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The museum specifically aims to make the experience personal by handing you a small booklet the moment you walk in. The booklet includes the name of a prisoner, their age, the concentration camp they were sent to and that person's shortened story-accompanied by pictures-to read as you make your way through the heartbreaking exhibits. Once you have made your way through the entire museum, you are told to flip to the last page to see if the person you were assigned was a survivor or not. If they're not, it feels a bit like a part of you goes to heaven with them.
So, my DC trip turned out to be a lot more than I ever anticipated it would. Sure, I stayed up late laughing and having "girl talk" with my best friends/room mates just like I would at any sleepover back home, but I also shared experiences with them that I've yet to be able to duplicate. While some of the sites we visited brought a more somber tone, the overall mood of the trip was quite the opposite. I left DC invigorated by the knowledge and experience that I gained, and I adopted a new appreciation for the people that have been running this country all this time.
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