When you think of spring break in college, a few instantaneous thoughts come to mind. Alcohol. Beach. Miami. Tan. Party. All of the above. You get the point. Once the last minute of the final class before break struck, most people jumped on the next flight to Fort Lauderdale and hastily said goodbye to the cold, dreary weather of Poughkeepsie. While the sunshine state is not an unappealing destination for spring break by any means, three of my friends and I decided to go somewhere somewhat atypical: Washington, D.C.
Okay, so it’s VERY atypical. When we told people our brilliant idea for how to spend our extra long spring break we got a wide variety of responses. The most common was: “Who goes to D.C. on spring break?” (This proved later on to be a great Facebook album title). I don’t even remember how we got the idea to be honest, but it ended up being a pretty amazing trip after all.
We were fortune enough to stay at the J.W. Marriott on Pennsylvania Avenue which meant we were walking distance from most of the major attractions. We were able take a tour of the Capitol, as well as sit in the conference room of the House of Representatives which just happened to be meeting that day. The long, but worthwhile walk along the National Mall gave us the opportunity to see the Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Korean War Memorial, World War II Memorial and the Washington Monument. The breathtaking exhibit at the National Holocaust Museum was a highlight of the trip, followed by a trolley ride throughout the city with a very enthusiastic tour guide. At the Jefferson Memorial we let our true tourist sides come out as we took an obnoxious amount of photos with the famous cherry blossom trees and played Hamilton songs whenever relevant (which was always). Our nights were spent walking through the quaint town of Georgetown where we ate way too much Italian food and drooled over the world famous macarons from PAUL Bakery, and attempting to get pictures as close as possible to The White House.
So yes, while some people were basking in the sun, slathering on the third layer of tanning oil, sipping margaritas and blowing up their our snapchat feeds with pictures of the ocean, the four of us were probably walking eight miles trying to reach our next museum destination, or taking pictures of the Washington Monument. Trying my best to resist sounding like a nerd here, going somewhere educational for spring break was not a bad thing. It was actually one of my favorite trips I have ever taken. Our days were long and tiring but spent doing worthwhile activities, seeing new sights, exploring a city other than New York, and broadening our world perspective. So although we didn’t come back with tans, or crazy stories about the parties we went to, we had a unique experience that proved to be a fantastic spring break after all.