March 25, 2005
On March 16 of the year 2005 I departed to Washington DC with my internship program called Recycle-A-Bicycle. We were on our way to a bike summit in the Ronald Reagan building. The bike summit was to discuss the ISTEA bill. But we will get into that later on. We were also there to discuss bike paths in NYC and the Brooklyn Bridge, The Williamsburg Bridge and other things for New York's cyclists and pedestrians.
When we left New York City it took us 4 hours to get to Washington DC. Those were four very carsick hours. We were going to be staying fairly close to the white house, at a hostel. I had never stayed at a hostel when I found out what a hostel was I was devastated. Luckily it was a nice hostel and we weren't going to be staying there for very long due to the conferences. When I look back the hostel was actually pretty cool and it was only 10 minutes away from an H&M store, which was tranquilizing to my very jittery nerves.
Our first conference would be the next day and we had to be there at eight o'clock, which meant getting up at 6:30. I had never been to a conference so this was my first time experiencing a conference, at least a formal one, I didn't know what to expect. When we got to The Ronald Reagan Building (which is twice the size of the Manhattan Mall) we were being greeted in the conference hall with the coolest messenger bags with a whole bunch of stuff about the bike summit in it. They also fed us until we dropped. When it was time to go the first conference, which was an hour and forty-five minutes long, we had a choice I picked the one where we could talk about the ISTEA bill with two men from congress so they could explain what the bill was about to those who weren't there. Because these men from congress have such hectic schedules they had to leave early from the conference so they tried to summarize what the bill was for and what was the problem. All I understood was that congress and the senate had both passed the bill but obviously passed different bill. When I say two different bills I mean they both passed ISTEA but the senate agreed on certain things that the congress didn't so we were there to get them to agree on things that we could all work with and would be most beneficiary to cyclist. After they had tried summarizing the ISTEA bill the 2 men from congress left and the people from the conference had questions so they got riled up.
After this conference I went to another one after a fifteen-minute break. At this conference they spoke about The Williamsburg Bridge and how they have bumps that need to be fixed for the cyclist they spoke about other places in the nation's problems. These conferences were really long so I was exhausted. This conference was somewhat special because a group from New York was talking they are called Transportation Alternatives and they gave my internship group Recycle A Bicycle a shout out I was really proud to be there at this point. Everyone thought we could actually make a difference at this time but I had my doubts. Actually at the end of the conference I almost had a panic attack. After everyone talking about my group talking to their senators like Hillary Clinton, Charles Schumer, Charles Rangel, Jose Serrano and Major Owens. I became really intimidated and I got really nervous, well let's just say it wasn't my happiest time at the conference I got a small pep talk from my friend Tare and everything was alright. After the conferences we had lunch in the ballroom of the building and the secretary of transportation for the United States spoke to us while we were eating lunch. Mr. Minetta told us about how his life was and how he appreciates us having the bike summit. Personally he was a pretty cool guy.
After this it was 6:00 and we went on a tour of Washington DC. I saw The Lincoln Memorial, WWII Memorial, and The Statue of Lincoln, which was really creepy because it reminds me of the ending of the movie planet of the apes. At the WWII Memorial I was confused because they put the states in a very weird order. As long as I found New York I was okay which I did. The Lincoln Memorial had construction going on around it so we couldn't get really close to it. The Smithsonian museum was pretty cool too. My favorite part was when we crossed a bridge into Virginia and turned right back around that was riveting. The sites in Washington were really cool. After that we were dying of hunger surprisingly as that may be. So we went to Ben's Big Chili Bowl. Bill Cosby, Denzel Washington and Dave Chappelle eat there all the time. I had to have their famous chili so I got a chiliburger with chili fries. All I have to say about that is that I have acid reflux and that wasn't a very nice thing I had done to my stomach. But taste wise it was real decent. After this we went back to the hostel and I had to shower thankfully we got the hostel pretty late so I had to shower by myself! This was extraordinary for me.