7- Leaving Day

It was 9 o’ clock when Ben knocked on my door. I did not punch him in the face as per my threat*. I had to respect, not only his patriotism and devil-may-care attitude, but the fact that he was able to get up before 10. I took off the clothes that I slept in, and threw on some new clothes, which I assumed that I would subsequently sleep in. I thought about making a complimentary cup of Holiday Inn coffee, but I thought better of it, since I had no idea how long we would need to get to the monuments. I also still needed to buy some extra host-family gifts.

We took the bus from Georgetown to Monument Park. Ben is a computer programmer from Oshkosh Wisconsin. He’s one of those guys that you trust immediately, because he starts out sentences with the phrase, “Back in Oshkosh…” You know… those guys. We chatted about pretty much everything, hometowns, Albania, Peace Corps, computers, monuments, families, Albania, friends, Washington, Oshkosh, Los Angeles, and then back to Albania… it always went back to Albania.

A bunch of young children got on the bus. They had accents and sweaters that said, “The British School of America.” When we didn’t know where to get off the bus, a gentleman from India, who worked for the IMF pointed us in the right direction. It may have been the fact that I was leaving the country that day, but it felt as if the world was coming to me, rather than the other way around.

As you walk to monument park, there are a series of smaller monuments, before you reach the big boys. There are monuments commemorating all manner of events which have either passed through my cultural grip, or I never learned about in 11th grade history. There is seemingly a monument for everyone**. Ben and I continued talking:

Eric: I wonder what our next monument will be.
Ben: Back in Oshkosh, we don’t have many monuments.
Eric: Yeah…
Ben: I guess we’ve had a lot of wars.
Eric: We need the wars to get the monuments.
Ben: Yeah, America doesn’t have a problem with going to wars, we have a problem with building monuments.
Eric: That makes sense. Monuments are cool.

We saw the Washington Monument. No matter how many times I see it or how many pictures I’ve seen of iconic American events taking place near it, it’s difficult to not be staggered by it’s grandeur. The flags were at half mast. Neither Ben nor I could figure out why that was.

We walked past the reflecting pool, which was drained and being worked on. We wondered briefly what they found upon draining it. We mounted the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, melting into groups of tourists and field trips and looked at Old Abe for a bit. It’s hard not to be a little more high-minded when Honest Abe is sitting there in his marble chiseled enormity, glowering into your soul. Ben and I stood gaping at Abe for a moment, while we made silently terrified promises to always tell the truth while in Albania.

We took some pictures and went to go shopping for host families.


*I'm full of, if nothing else, idle threats.
*This statue commemorates the brave actions of those who have gone before us, to learn to play the washtub base with their toes. May they long be remembered.