I had the incredible opportunity to go to Washington D.C. for two days.

Overall, this trip was an unexpected last minute adventure I never thought would be coming. When my friend Sarah mentioned that the Critical Language Scholarship Alumni Society would be having a professional conference in Washington, I first thought about it and was quite sad to realize that I would not be able to afford to go to such a conference.

Granted, I live an hour away from Washington DC, but because I am unable to drive that far early in the morning (I just got my license and am unable to go on highways without freaking out), I shrugged it off.

But as it turns out, they are incredible for offering travel assistance. I was given a modest stipend and a dorm room at American University for two nights, which I am eternally grateful to have received.

So a Friday in June, I ordered an Uber from my house and venture to Penn Station in Baltimore. I took a thirty-minute Amtrak to Union Station in Washington D.C., then, as I descended down into the subway, it turns out I had the most helpful face around.

As I went to refill my metro card, I had to explain to a lady next to me how to use the machine because she asked, an older gentleman pulled me to the side and asked me how to get to Dulles, and then an elderly Asian woman began asking me questions in Mandarin Chinese.

The look on that woman’s face when I responded back in perfect Mandarin was hilarious. Anyways, I finally made it onto the red line, hopped over to the blue/silver line to head down to L’Efant Plaza. From there, my day began. In ninety-two degree heat, I made the brilliant decision of walking as much as possible apparently.

The Wharf, Asian Art Museum, African Art Museum

Before heading down to Washington, I made an itinerary of things I wanted to do because I had such limited time. My dorm check-in was at 3 PM, but I wanted to maximize my time at the National Mall and hit up the Smithsonian Museums because they’re completely free for the public. But first I wanted to have lunch, so at L’Efant Plaza I trekked for about fifteen minutes south to The Wharf, a waterfront area in Washington that’s full of cute little shops and restaurants.

I had specifically wanted to eat at Falafel, Inc., but I walked around The Wharf first before going there. I stopped in Politics and Prose, a local independent bookstore, and debated buying a copy of The Silk Road, but then realized I didn’t actually have the money to be carelessly buying books like this.

After that, I headed to Shop Made in DC, which is a store that sells local artisan made products. I picked up two postcards for my sister and I, then headed over to Falafel, Inc. to order the falafel bowl. It was $6 for a bowl of freshly fried falafel atop a bed of spinach, tabouleh, cabbage, pickles, and za’atar chips.

I ordered a side of za’atar fries to go with it and picked up a carbonated fruit soda. At the side, there’s a station where they have all their sauces, and I loaded up on the habibi and mazbout sauces. There’s nowhere to sit and eat—you stand at the tables outside and chomp down on your food. And man was that meal delicious. I was stuffed for only $15, but I thought those falafel were the most moist ones I ever had. I couldn’t finish the fries, but they were seasoned so well.

I sat down at a nearby bench for five minutes after that to let myself digest the food, then began the fifteen minute trek north to the National Museum of Asian Art. I was told to come to the museum by my professor to seek out artwork for research, and I just genuinely wanted to come and take my time.

I sat down at a bench for a bit before going in, since it was insanely hot on this day. I thought I was dying lowkey, and was eternally grateful I brought some water from home to sip on. I headed in through the Sackler gallery (almost threw up when I saw it was still named this, how disgusting) after gawking at the Smithsonian Castle for a bit.

I entered through the section that’s the lower levels of the museum. Basically, there was an artifact exhibit about Anyang, China, and the kingdom that was there in the ancient days, a exhibition about the Japanese artist Ay-O and his rainbow work (I was fascinated by his screenprints commenting on Buddhism), a classic Tibetan style shrine room, an exhibition on contemporary Indian photography, and then there were the artifacts collected from northeast South Asia.

The gift shop was also on this floor, and I wandered it for twenty minutes in search of prints. I was forced to settle on some prints of Japanese arts and a Japan-inspired painting from the late 1800s in France.

The top floor of Asian Art is where the magic happens. They house their Indian artifacts up there, as well as the East Asian and Persian ones. I’ve made it a weird personal mission to see as many pages of the Shahnameh as possible, and they had three.

The pottery from Korea was fascinating as well, so was the Peacock Room. I left after two hours a happy camper, although I had felt I did not see everything even then, and headed to the next closest museum to burn time: the African Art Museum.

This is one of the smaller Smithsonian museums, and it’s three floors below the ground level. I got through the first two floors before firmly giving up, but I thought the exhibitions I had seen during this trip were fascinating. I want to go back there eventually, but because it takes an hour to get to American University via train and walking, I thought I should head out since it was almost 5 PM.

Unfortunately, they did not have prints to sell, so I left with a sad face. I took an elevator to a station nearby, and was completely and utterly disturbed to look down at the floor and realize I was standing in a puddle of pee.

It’s about twenty minutes on the red line to Tenleytown, but because the dorms for AU are a bit of a hike, I got off the subway and went to the nearest Dunkin Donuts. It was free donut day if you bought a drink, so I bought a large drink and ended up chugging it on the thirty minute walk.

It was a gorgeous walk, don’t get me wrong, but in this heat it was not fun at all. I wanted to keel over and die by the time I got to the dorms, and the girl who checked me in looked concerned. When I got up to my room, I saw why. My entire face was blood red from heat and dehydration.

I stayed in my room for the rest of the night, eating my chocolate donut and the crackers I packed. I ended up staying late because my friend was worried her name wasn’t on the list for the dorms, and she got in from New York at 1 AM. At 2 AM I finally went to bed, only to get up at 7 AM for the conference.

CLSAS Conference

I don’t want to go into detail about the CLSAS Conference, but I enjoyed my experience there. I didn’t stay for all of the panels because I thought the last chunk of panels weren’t up my alley professionally, but I felt like I learned a lot about government careers overall and how to use my program experiences to tailor it to the professional careers available.

I also got to meet other Bangla alumna, and we ended up sitting at the same table and crowded together like a flock. Overall I didn’t meet a ton of new people, but it was okay because I had some really awesome conversations with the people I already knew about life and existentialism, while also trading upcoming opportunities.

After the conference, three of us from my program got into an Uber and headed to a two-part restaurant hopping experience. When I was in DC a couple weeks prior for a concert, my friend and I had amazing Chinese-Peruvian food at a place called China Chilcano in the Penn Quarter. The three of us went there first for a round of appetizers, then headed twelve minutes up the road to Rumi’s Kitchen, which I swear is some of the best Iranian food in the United States I’ve ever had.

We ordered sodas, beer, gheimeh, wings, and shirazi salad. It was such a nice meal and I’m glad we had so many hours to catch up. When it was time for Sarah’s train, she got into an Uber, then Caitlyn and I sat and chatted at the swing sets nearby.

We hugged goodbye, then I got on the subway, arrived at Tenleytown, and realized there was no way I was walking in the dark with no one around. I hopped into a four-minute Uber (which was almost the same price as a twenty-minute one? How absurd.), went straight into my dorm room, and passed out. The next morning I got up at eight am, got dressed, packed up my things, folded the linens, and turned in my keycard.

I wanted to take a nice long walk to the subway, since it was thirty minutes, and contemplated life while on the red line. It takes you straight to Union Station, so when I arrived I sat down in the food court and read on my Kindle until it was time to board my train. My parents picked me up at Penn Station, then we went to get Thai food near my university.

All in all, this was such a great trip. I’m glad I was given such an opportunity through CLSAS, and I will happily attend next year, although I might drive to that edition. We’ll see what I’m up to then.