The Luck o' the Irish!

Tuesday 3/17/2009
St. Patrick's Day is where our stories intersect again! The group that didn't go on the plunge had an early morning working at Capitol Area Food Bank and the plungers had another 5 AM, with breakfast at Charlie's Place.

So, bear with me for the next paragraph (or two) as I finish up with the plunge perspective in its final hours. After a hearty dinner-for-breakfast at Charlie's place (sausage and peppers never tasted so good in the morning) we stumbled on the dilemma of getting back to the hostel at the conclusion of the plunge. You see, Denton forgot his metro card at the hostel, while Matthew, Bridget, and I had left ours at the NHC, so we had no way of getting Denton back to the hostel! One of our fearless guides, John, told us about how people throw away their metro cards with money still on them, so digging in the trash was quite a viable option. So at the DuPont Circle metro station, we dug through the trash, where Denton and Bridget found a card with $6.70 on it (plenty to get Denton back with us!), that had been thrown away because the magnetic strip had stopped working. John explained to us that all we needed to do was get it traded in at the main station, which we did and wa-la! Denton can come back with us! We hung out at the MLK Jr. Library again for a bit (where Matthew crashed while still managing to look as though he was reading)...which, ironically enough, we were able to get books to read on the way there because it was "Free Irish Books Day" and all of us got a free book (how cool was that?!). On the final leg of our trip, we wrapped up what we'd learned with Jonathon, John, and Anthony. I can't explain to you the things we learned and how valuable they are and will continue to be for us. Anthony and John are seriously wonderful, wonderful men and we were so very, very blessed to have them as guides. I wish I could write all of the stories about them here, but there are too many and just take my word that they are absolutely hilarious (Anthony told us his favorite things to do are to laugh and make people laugh--which he's quite good at!), love God and Starbucks coffee, and have giant hearts and will be priceless advocates for the homeless of D.C.

Doug, Brittany, Frances and Alex met with Rep. Latham while we wrapped up our plunge experience and after we showered (best.thing.EVER!!) and did some organizing at the hostel, the group was reunited and ready to hit the town together! Reunited, we made our first stop at Haagen Daz, which was my pick because I NEEDED some ice cream. In case you were wondering, I got a large bowl with three flavors: Bailey's Irish Creme (no, there was NO alcohol, don't worry!), Coffee Mocha Chip, and Peanut butter and Fudge. Divine! :) Then we went to McDonald's, where we got supper for under $25 (Doug was so proud!)...could have been because we went with dessert first? Anyway, it was lovely and all fueled up we went and visited the Washington and Lincoln Monuments. All of us really enjoyed it, but our legs were a little sore by this point!

In random, interesting stuff for that evening, we found that Frances and Denton want to see EVERYTHING they can possibly see while on vacations; Doug was dying for a McDonald's shamrock shake all night (which he had to compromise for chocolate or vanilla with); Bridget who had never had a cup of coffee in her life previously had three and was acting a LITTLE bit crazy! Frances was so in the Irish spirit that she covered for me and lent me a green headband with sparkling shamrocks protruding from wires at the top. I dubbed it my "buzz-buzz" and countless children were amused by it wherever we went, and Doug found it to be a successful motivator for speed if I was not moving quickly enough for his taste! We then were able to find one of our guides, John, and introduce the rest of the group to him! We all then retired at the hostel in preparation for the a busy Wednesday!