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Published: August 21st 2008
The following entry was written in seat 42 J of a United Airlines Boeing 747.
There are only a few more hours. The plane ride is about halfway through. Joe is on my right and Bailey on my left. Today was an intense mixture of emotions. Wake-up was the usual time and the first event for the morning was a visit to Arlington cemetary. It's odd to think that I was totally uneffected by the capitol building, the Jeffereson memorial, even the White House. And really, Arlington itself was not what provoked emotion, but only the number of headstones. I had known before that Arlington was a very large place, but looking about on every side of you and seeing nothing but death represented by white grave markers and loving epitaphs...That gives one a feeling of sobriety like not many other things could. The changing of th guards was experienced by yours truly as well, but again, it had little to no effect. Their precision was impressive, the amount of respect and reverence they had was even more so. This, though, still did not come close to hitting me as hard as seeing the incomprehensible amount of headstones. The same
Japanese Sprite
...or 7 up. I'm not completely sure, but I got it on the flight to Frankfurt and I thought it was cool.went for the Vietnam Wall. At first I was in awe, almot as though I was meeting someone famous, but that quickly wore off. After that it was the amount of names, just like the headstones, that I was effected by. The Vietnam Wall was one of the memorials I had seen the evening prior.
After that was lunch and a bit more shopping at the mall. Nick and I bought aviator sunglasses. (Mine were purchased in desperation as an unsuccessful attempt to replace the ones that I broke on the subway.)
Then came the hard part. Actually leaving for that Germany place. I'm not scared or nervous, but I'm not excited either. I have been. I have previously been very excited. Just not now. The likely reason: It still feels like pretend. I feel as though my trip to D.C. was all I should have expected. Instead of being merely an orientation it was the entire trip and now we are heading home. This, of course, will be over come upon my arrival at the airport in Frankfurt.
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