March for Life

Last weekend, I went on my second March for Life trip with ODU.  It was a lot more relaxing than it was last year, because I've already done it before, so I wasn't as obsessed with making sure I got to see every building in D.C.  I am sad that I didn't take as many pictures since I was so cold and tired most of the trip.  It was still a really awesome experience though. 

We stayed at a high school in Maryland near Washington DC again sleeping on the floors of the teachers' conference rooms.  Girls were in one room and boys in the other.  It was like a 40person slumber party and it was awesome.  I made some really great memories and met some new friends and got to grow closer with my friend Alli as we shared late night pillow talk underneath some tables. 

The first night (Saturday) we just stayed at the high school, ate, got ready for bed, hung out, played card games, etc.  I played my first game of Go Ninja Go and did not get out on the first round as I had expected! 

The second day (Sunday) was dedicated to exploring the Washington DC area.  We began our day by attending mass at the National Shrine (Basilica).  It is a beautiful church and I strongly encourage anyone who is planning to be in the Washington DC area to try and at least spend a half hour there.  It really is an amazing place.  After mass, we split up into small groups and took the metro into town.  Our group stopped by the Catholic University of America's center for Dominican studies first (being the great little Dominicans we are) and our friend Nicole who spent a year in Nashville with some sisters during her discernment process got to meet up with some of those sisters again at the university!  We took some pretty awesome pictures in front of the building with our group which I will add once I am in my room and have access to my pictures, but I am currently writing this from ODU's wonderful library where I spend most of my days :)

My boyfriend, James, and I split from the group and got me some coffee at Union Station (the mall) before site-seeing and spent most of our site-seeing time in museums.  The Smithsonian museums are amazing!  There is some really neat stuff in those buildings.  I actually learned a lot about some pretty random things during our visit!  We also finally got to see the Lincoln Memorial which is much bigger in person than I imagined!  It reminded me a lot of the scene in Disney's Hercules where Hercules goes to the temple of Zeus.  That was the first thing I thought of when we walked up the stairs and then, the Hercules song got stuck in my head. 

Once we got back to the high school, we had some more hanging out time and pizza.  I also finally got a picture with my friend Amber with whom I had no pictures until that very night.  Then, I was asked to walk on multiple backs and heard plenty of cracks and only wished I had had someone there willing to walk on my back :(

The last day was the day of the march (Monday).  My day began at 3am as I volunteered for the hour between 3 and 4am for Eucharistic adoration.  It was a very peaceful place to be at 3 in the morning after only getting 2 hours of sleep.  Being up early did give me an advantage as I was able to beat everyone to the one shower that all of us girls had to share :).  We had a quick breakfast and got to the armory around 7am for a concert/rally/mass.  It was pretty intense.  There were about 10, 000 people (mostly youths) in the room where we were and another 10- 20 thousand in the Verizon Center next to us.  We were there for quite some time, but it was really awesome to see so many teenagers and college students as well as seminarians and women religious all in the same room advocating the same cause.  I am usually not a huge fan of this sort of gathering, but it was a very moving experience especially the procession of all of the priests, bishops, and archbishops who celebrated the mass. 

I am sad to say that I did not participate in the march for very long as it was very cold and we were not allowed to march for some reason for a while.  We ended up standing on the sidewalk waiting to march until we met up with my friend Alli and her boyfriend Eric and then, we decided to just walk up the sidewalk and try and find out what was going on and we ended up just walking to the supreme court house which was a very short walk from where we were standing and once we got there, we found out we weren't actually even in the real march and were asked to make room for the marchers.  Then, we just went to Union Station again and I got coffee and we all got Chipotle for dinner as we waited for the rest of our group to get there to prepare to depart back to Columbus.

We ended up not getting home until almost 3am and I was amazed to find that almost everyone still got up for their classes the next morning (some for classes at 8am!).  We have some pretty awesome people at ODU and I am really lucky to be a part of this community and to have gotten the chance to go on this March for Life trip again this year.