First day in D.C. tiring but terrific

4 a.m.? I had only heard of that in stories. Nevertheless, I persevered and dragged my luggage into the car with closed eyes. Stumbling into the Amarillo airport at 4:30 a.m., I was met by a crowd of my friends who were all way too happy and excited at this time of day. Some of them had never flown or traveled out of Texas before, which ensured this would be one wild ride.

We arrived to Dallas at a time most people would be waking up. I hadn’t had breakfast yet so I was famished. One look at Ms. Prather’s frenzied face told me all I needed to know. “Troops, MARCH!” And so we ran to our next gate. In slow motion, we passed not one, but two Starbucks, and the promise of breakfast.

Let me tell you about this flight. First, a disclaimer: I’m a frequent flyer, as in my family drags me all over the world. I’ve been on long overnight flights before but those seem like a cakewalk compared to this one. Everything was fine until the last 20 minutes. The plane started dropping and jerking in what felt like an airshow performance. Parachuting out of the plane suddenly sounded like a pleasant idea. The pilots finally landed in Washington D.C., and the scared, hungry and sleep-deprived passengers exited as the flight attendants placed their throw up bags in the trash.  

Straight out of the airport we were rushed into a waiting bus to transport us to our hotel. Although we were all in dire need of a little time to unpack and freshen up, we were ushered to drop our luggage and continue on. We were handed metro passes on the go as instructions of how to get past the gates were yelled at us. First off, let’s imagine that everybody knew the rules of a high speed tube carrying tons of packed passengers. Now imagine the opposite of that, and then you have a pretty good picture of what we looked like.

Coming back to surface, we found ourselves practically running about the ghetto of Washington D.C. with our stomachs growing louder than our footsteps. Our motivation was simple. If we wanted to get a hot meal, we had to arrive at our destination before 2:30. Finally, in the middle of nowhere, a beautiful university appeared: Gallaudet University. Gallaudet is the only Deaf college in the world and in addition, it was our destination. While some students gaped at the campus, I looked for the one thing keeping me going–food. One of our sponsors had to ask for directions, but eventually we found ourselves inhaling any kind of sustenance we could get our hands on.

To begin our tour of Gallaudet, Ms. Prather was asked if our group needed an interpreter and to our dismay, she said no. Being in ASL II, I had never actually seen or signed to a Deaf person in real life so to be honest, I was a little nervous. I was hoping I might be able to understand most of what he was signing, but man, was I wrong. In some moments I could put the bits of pieces together, but most of the time I would simply stare. Our tour guide must have been hilarious because every once in awhile his audience would laugh. Halfway through, I was able to start understanding more of what our guide was communicating and was sincerely fascinated. Most people do not know a lot about Deaf culture and having the opportunity to tour a university that completely supports it was a unique and enlightening experience.

Nearing the end of the tour, we began to devolve into a zombie-like state once again. That’s when our guide led us to the university store where we ran inside like bulls in a china shop. Everyone purchased a souvenir and then proceeded to wait in the sitting area outside the store. Then, through the crowd, Ms. Prather and a familiar stranger approached us. Ms. Prather started freaking out and signed “president, president.” It was as if someone had warned of a bomb. All of us stood up and stared at the 11th president of Gallaudet, Roberta J. Cordano. She only had three minutes, but we all made sure to take pictures with her.

After that experience we were pumped up and ready to go. In other words, we were getting hungry and ready to return to our hotel. We boarded the metro for a second time and went to eat supper. For the first time that day, our group was happy to be in a hurry. We practically ran for the Cheesecake Factory using our noses as guides. Upon our entrance, the staff seemed to surrender all their willpower as they saw the herds of hungry students rushing in and as a result, they bid us to sit where we desired. This was the first time all of us were able to talk to each other and not be rushed. From there, we made our way to the hotel with bellies agonizingly full of delectable food. What seemed like two hours later, we arrived at our destination. Before we were allowed to go to our rooms, we listened to a speech about how we were going to behave during the next few days. After the long talk, I made my way up to my room and went straight to bed, thus concluding an eventful day in our nation’s capitol.