Day 11- Washington DC

        We stayed with Nicholai Lazarev’s family in DC. He lived in an apartment with Garrett on the mission, and I saw him probably more than any other missionary while in Paris. They live probably half an hour north west of the city.  So that is who we stayed with...

Cousins with Ridiculous hats

        We woke up pretty late on our first day in DC. We went and had breakfast and then headed to the metro station to get into town. We hoped off at George Washington University, then walked over to the Lincoln Memorial, checked out all the war memorials in the area, then the Washington Monument, and then the White House. I must mention that it was really hot and humid. Not enjoyable. Taylor and I stopped to lie down on benches under the Washington Monuments’ shadow for a few minutes. It was good stuff. We also stopped at what became our favorite tradition- McDonalds- for smoothies.
        One of the best stories of the trip was the crazy lady who freaked out at the cashier there. She was yelling things like “come out front and fight!” and “he says he wanna knock me out!” Things like that. She was mad about something and stood there complaining for 20 minutes or so. We got a good laugh. My two favorite lines were “Come out and fight… you know what, no. I’m gonna say don’t come out- ‘cause if you come out here, Imma beat you up!” And the best- “What kind of McDonalds is this?!” As if she had high expectations for McDonalds. Haha and it was a pretty nice Micky-D’s, too.

What is more American than baseball on the Capitol lawn?

        We hit up the White House after McDonalds, then headed to the Capitol building, where we tossed a baseball for a few minutes before heading to the air and space museum. That was a pretty cool place, especially for a museum. Nice work.
        After the air and space, it was game time, so we got on the metro to the stadium. The street from the metro to the stadium was kinda scary. It was fully of scalpers and shady people. We got our tickets in the far upstairs corner and went up to our seats. Taylor and I quickly realized that between it being the Nats and a late start due to rain, they weren’t going to be close to a full house, so we went downstairs and braved the rain to watch Bronson Arroyo warm up in the Cincy bullpen. TJ has this cool hat that has hair coming off the back like Bronson has, so he stood out a little while standing right over the bullpen. Bronson noticed and kinda smiled at him. Right before the start of the game, a reliever tossed a ball to Taylor.Eventually, the other fella’s joined us down stairs. Some of the players were throwing stuff at another pitcher, Arrendondo, and he would always turn around and look right at Garrett before realizing it was his teammates. Haha All in all, Nico ended up getting a ball and giving it to the kid by us, then at the end of the game, Chapman tossed Garrett a ball, too.
        Cincy lost the game, but we left with 2 more balls (plus the third given to a kid). We enjoyed the stadium. It was nothing special, but still nice.
        We then went back home and got to bed after some dessert. The end.

DC, Fellas

Game prediction standings:
Eric 5-3
Taylor 5-3
Mitch 4-4 *
Garrett 3-5
*asterisks denotes a correct score prediction in Cleveland.

Scoreboard:
Jumbotron appearances: 4
Balls from the game: 5 (Garrett-DC; Taylor-DC; Nicholai- DC; Mitch-NYM; Taylor- Balt)
Promotion items: 2 (Garrett- Hat in Cle; Mitch- backpack in Cle)
Stadium hours: 30.5
Rainouts/ hours: 4
Extra innings: 6
Car hours: 31.5
Miles: 1650
States: 11