@frazzledazzle I was able to see him for a good second, but not meet him. I’m okay with that though.
@snowfairy137 It honestly was a zoo filled to the brim with people wearing “MAGA” shirts and hats. :)) I also laughed at your comment harder than I should have.
Overall the NOVEC Youth Tour was easily one of the best social experiences I have ever had. I got back yesterday and I still want to go back! I’ll go ahead and fill you guys in on what we did before and after going to the White House:
Monday
Before going to the White House, we had Youth Day Session where we listened to motivational speakers and Youth Tour Alumni. We listened to the people of other electric cooperatives who brought light and electricity to a village in Guatemala, a speech from a Youth Tour alumni from Alabama who was selected to represent her co-op last year. and a wonderful story from a former Olympic paraplegic basketball player. After that, we took some pictures with our electric co-op and visited the White House, where we also took lots of pictures. We then went to the Newseum, a museum dedicated to journalism where got to learn a lot of journalism and civil rights throughout American history. Got a few things from the gift shop too. Then, we went on a tour of The National Mall’s memorials and monuments, my favorite being the WWII memorial and the MLK and Washington monuments. Right after, we went to the Nationals vs. Braves baseball game, which the Nats won ^:)^ . I got on the Jumbo Tron too, which was so cool since I think I got on TV. After the game, we went back to our hotel and socialized on our floor. At this point, we were becoming were close friends. Our floor felt really similar to a college dorm room floor where everyone socializes with everyone and we leave our doors open to talk to people. It felt really nice. We went to bed at 11pm for curfew that night, but since the Cavs v. Warriors game was on, we stayed up until midnight.
Tuesday
The next morning, we woke up and head to Arlington National Cemetery and let me tell you: it was hot!!! We walked a whooping 2.5 miles in 86 degree weather, but I guess it was worth it to see the graves of some of America’s most decorated soldiers and war men. We even got to see JFK’s grave, which was really cool. After that, we went to lunch at this really nice Italian restaurant in DC and then visited the African American History museum. I saw so much and got to experience my roots at the same time. I personally liked how the building was in the shape of an African crown. Still disappointed that Beyoncé didn’t have her own statue in the museum yet and apparently so were a lot of people, but we did see a statue of Whitney Houston, Venus and Serena Williams, and others. After visiting the museum, we went back to our hotel for some downtime. I took a shower and socialized with more people on our floor as we got ready to go see The Sound of Music at the Kennedy Center. Once we were all ready and dressed up, we went to the center to see the musical. I had already seen the movie, but the play was wonderful and kept with most of the historical accuracies from the movie and time period. I was kind of surprised with part of the play in particular when, on stage, four flags with, as many people would depict it to look like a “black spider”, rained down from the top of the stage. From the cast literally hailing Hitler at times and having the cast in Nazi outfits, you could definitely feel the uncomfortableness of Nazi Germany. Overall, the play was fantastic and kept many similarities with the movie. After the play, we went back to the hotel around curfew.
Wednesday
The next morning was our Capitol Tour, however, most of the day was ruined for us because of the Alexandria shooting that happened where that 5 were wounded. Security in and around the Capitol was heightened. That, however, didn’t stop us from going to many places and taking lots of photos. We got to take pictures on the steps of the Capitol and then went into the Library of Congress. Because of heightened security, we had to do lots of waiting and didn’t get to do our tour of the Capitol until later that afternoon. Because we had insider access from a person who worked in the Capitol, we got to through the private access tunnels that link many of DCs most prominent building including the Capitol and the Library of Congress. We had lunch at the Capitol cafeteria and did quite the amount of walking around the city. We met with both a democratic and republican House representative, Connolly and Wittman, but because of the shooting, they couldn’t really talk to us for that long. I asked a few questions and found out that apparently, there was a small voting scandal in my area, back during the 2012 election, that didn’t allow many minorities to vote, which I kind of got mad about since a question was asked about racial injustice. We finally got to go on our Capitol tour afterwards. We got to see both the House of Representatives and Senate in session which was kind of boring, but cool. We got to see where the president would make the State of the Union address. After that, we went back to our hotel, after going to a gift shop in DC and waiting an hour in DC rush hour traffic, and had our farewell dinner and party. Let me tell you, that party was WILD!!! More than 1,000 kids crammed into a room dancing and twerking lol and it was definitely the best party I had ever been too. After the party, we went up to our floor and just sat down and sang songs having a good time until we were told to go back to our rooms due to a noise complaint. We still got to talk for a bit and got really depressed because the next day was the last day of the tour. We went to bed around curfew that night.
Thursday
By 7:30am, we had our bags packed and got ready to leave the hotel. We put our luggage in the minivan we came in on Sunday and went on our bus to Mount Vernon, George Washington’s home. Washington was living lash and while he had slaves, he treated them a lot better than most. His estate was so big too. Since it was our last day together, I decided to collect everyone’s social media. The last place we all got to see each other was the Mount Vernon gift shop and cafeteria where we all, not emotionally ready to leave each other, hugged each other and said our goodbyes as we went our separate ways. I made so many new friends those past few days that it was pretty sad when we had to leave.
Overall, I had so much fun during the trip!!! The best part was seeing how through lots of socialization and partying, we went from being total strangers to best friends who had known each other forever in less than a week. I’ll be keeping up with them on social media, but luckily, we’re going to see some of them again in February on our one day trip to Richmond. I can’t wait! The Youth Tour definitely did not disappoint!
I’m planning on posting pics on social media soon and hopefully posting my vlog on YouTube before I leave for NASA Langley next Saturday.