HawkTalk
Ugo Nwaigwe

D.C. Chillin’

Hi guys!

This weekend was our season opener! We played VCU Friday and Maryland on Sunday.  We were on the road for 4 days--moving from hotel to hotel; eating at different famous restaurants; and visiting some awesome places.  Though we were there for strictly business, our Coach found plenty of down time for us to enjoy our trip.  I remember her saying a couple of years ago that the wins and losses of games really don't matter when you look back at your college career.  However, it's the time you spend with your teammates during the season that you remember the most--and she is definitely right!

After we played VCU, we traveled two hours that night to our hotel in Maryland.  We were exhausted after the game and the only thing we were thinking about waIMG_7271s sleep.  The next morning, we woke up and had breakfast.  We knew we had a set agenda for the day and we were all excited.  We bussed it down to DC and toured the historic monuments.  I'm into stuff like that so I thought everything was pretty cool.  Nevertheless, it is the political capital of our nation--so that was also pretty awesome.  We started of at the Lincoln Memorial.  There was a big statue of Abraham Lincoln, along with one of his notable quotes.  There was a lot of steps to get to the actuaIMG_7280l statue but it was okay because we were basketball players.  Anyway, what was so captivating about the Lincoln Memorial was that it was directly across from the Washington Monument.  It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.  It was a lone building that was in distance of the Lincoln Memorial, but it had so much meaning.  The Monument was built to commemorate George Washington.  The monument was astounding but what was even more astounding was how crowded it was with all types of people who were interested in this part of the country.  Everyone was taking pictures in front of monuments and asking questions about what it stood for.

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Next stop, we visited the Smithsonian museums.  At this point, we all split up because everyone wanted to visit different sites.  My teammate and I decided to go to the National Museum of Natural Art.  The museum was filled over 126 specimens--plants, animals, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, and human cultural artifacts.  I was dumbfounded with everything I saw.  Although all the specimens were no longer living, they were all life sized.  I saw a life sized bear and a life sized giraffe.  Our reaction to everything was "no wayyyyy!" or "this is unreal!"  I was taking all types of selfies with these animals.

I thought thatIMG_7289 was going to be the greatest thing I would see that day, but I was soooo wrong.  Our very next and last stop was the WHITE HOUSE! Yup, we literally saw, visited, entered, and touched the White House.  Of course, we were denied access to the whole house for obvious reasons; however, we were allowed to tour the East Wing.  We saw the Red Room, the Green Room, the Blue Room...and I think there was a Yellow Room.  There were other rooms we saw too but I forgot their names.  Even though it wasn't the ideal rooms I would have loved to have seen, I was still in the White House.  How many people can say they were in the White House? I unfortunately didn't see the Obama family, nor did I see any political figures, or Olivia Pope.  But all in all, I was in the WHITE HOUSE and that will forever be a memorable moment in my life.

 

That actually wasn't our last stop.  We went to Georgetown and shopped till we dropped--literally.  By the end of the day, we were exhausted.  However, we wouldn't have trade that day for anything.  There was so much history we walked through that day and we may not have even noticed.  I was feeling so patriotic!  D.C. is a must go for everyone!

Ugo 🙂