First two weekends ago, on Friday night, Wendy and I got into the city at the same time as like 2 tornados. Yay. But we both still managed to go out and meet up with people at Sara and Davia's new place which is adorable. Highlights of the night include BSB covers, homemade cornbread, seven layer dip, and being introduced to Cards Against Humanity.
On Saturday, my pen pal Sam and I finally met for the first time. Sam and I became pen pals during a 7th grade Civics project. Pen pals were the cool thing to do at least for a couple of weeks until everyone else stopped writing to their pen pals. Sam and I were unaware pen pals stopped being cool so we just kept writing to each other.....for 13 years. We sent pictures and presents, told stories about pets and relationships and family, and saw each other through graduations, moves, breakups, and jobs. When facebook became 'a thing' sometime during college, Sam and I switched to communicating more online. He told me last year that he was thinking of playing rugby in the U.S. for a little while and, of course, I was a huge fan of this idea.
He actually did plan a visit and came to the States to play rugby in Cincinnati in March. This was the middle of my last semester of my Master's so I didn't even have time to think about planning a visit until after graduation. Sam bought his tickets to DC as a last stop on his way home back to New Zealand for early June. Last Saturday, my roommate Wendy and I went to pick him up at Dulles without any real plan except for to do all of the touristy things we could fit into one day.
We were all running on little sleep. Sam running on less, which is why he has the Red Bull.
After checking Sam into his hotel, we met up with Mike, who showed us around to all of the monuments, memorials, museums, and The White House. Then we proceeded to collect Josh, Sara, Noah, and Kim on our tour which I am grateful for because, if I didn't have all of these knowledgeable people along, I would have just had to make up pieces of our history for Sam. Later that evening, we decided against showing Sam Americanized versions of 'meat pies' and went back to Mike's place for pizza and beer (almost as American as it gets).
Sunday, Mike, his roommate, and I went back to the cutest little crepe place we had gone the day before and were each handed like 8 different samples of gelato. Each flavor was apparently better than the flavor before somehow. I like this crepe place. The Sam met up with us and him and I left the city to head back to Williamsburg after collecting Wendy. Sunday night a bunch of us introduced Sam to the delis, Mug Night, and to cheese fries: there you have Williamsburg nightlife.
Monday, (because I had to babysit), Wendy took Sam on a tour of Colonial Williamsburg and The Outlets. He came back with like 5 bags of stuff after his trip, including chocolates for Wendy and I thanking us for hosting him. Unfortunately, I had to take Sam home that night since his flight was the next morning and I committed the unforgivable sin of not taking him to The Cheese Shop before leaving Williamsburg. He had just eaten though! And we got Chick-Fil-A on the drive up!
Tuesday, I talked my sister into coming with me and Sam to the airport. Traffic was crazy and a great reminder why I never want to be a NOVA commuter, but we got there with plenty of time to snap a pen pal picture!
Goodbyes outside of Dulles.
Now to begin planning my trip to New Zealand:)
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