A Day in DC

A few weeks ago I went on a trip to Virginia with Anna to visit Lauren Nest! While we were there, Anna and I made a little trip to Washington D.C. for the day. We spent the entire day walking around the Mall seeing, literally, all the memorials. We were having a great time. Our feet were killing us, but we had so much fun!

About 5:15 pm we start heading back to the parking garage to go meet Ronke for dinner. On our way back I get a phone call from my mom on the other side of the world asking if I could try to go to the KZ embassy to pick up my sister's passport. She thought it would be open until six, so of course I said we would try! We get back to the parking garage (which I wasn't totally confident we were allowed to park in). I, for some reason, looked at my tires and noticed the back, driver side tire to be significantly deflated. However, we did not have time to change the tire, we had to make it to that embassy before six. We got in the car, found our way out of the parking garage, paid the nice man way too much money for a parking space, and by 5:40, with full determination to get to that embassy I pull out of the garage and hit a very ill placed, bright yellow pole! The pole ripped the passenger side mirror completely off my car. The mirror was hanging on by a wire. We quickly roll the window down and pull the mirror inside the car, so at least it's not flapping around. So here we are....downtown Washington D.C., in the middle of rush hour traffic, with a flat tire, and the window rolled down with a mirror hanging on by a wire laying inside the car, trying to make it to an embassy by 6:00pm. When we are about 2 and 1/2 blocks away, the clock hits 5:52. There is no way I'm not going to give it all I have to get that passport. I grab my wallet jump out of the car and start running through downtown D.C. during rush hour. Oh...the closest I will come to a movie scene. Running down the sidewalk yelling "excuse me" to anyone in my way. I get to the embassy at 5:59....they were closed. Had been closed for an hour........but the story doesn't end there.....not hardly....

Meanwhile, Anna is driving around in my flat tired car trying to find a parking place to change the tire (in downtown DC during the middle of rush hour). She finds a place half way in a parking spot about a block and a half from where I am. However, my friend that we were meeting for dinner, Ronke, is coming to find us to help us out (obviously dinner is postponed). Ronke finds me and we go find Anna. Thankfully we were right next to an apartment complex. We backed the car into the little drive way and got ready to change the tire. Thankfully, again, I had experience in changing tires and was ready for action!!!!

However, just as I get the car jacked up, a homeless man comes by and takes over (apparently I was not doing it to his satisfaction). He changed my tire in record time, while Ronke went and borrowed duck tape from the concierge of the apartments to tape my mirror back on.

So....our day in DC ended with a donut tire on my car (with the help of a homeless man), a duck taped, passenger side mirror, and two very tired girls! But thankfully, during the incident, while there was a tear or two shed and some, perhaps, unnecessary remarks, I remembered the wise words of my mother, "If you can laugh about it later, you might as well laugh about it now."