It’s been about a week since I’ve been able to properly sit down and pen some words about my time in DC and it feels like a lot has happened.
First off, I recently found out that the company I work for back in Australia, “foodora” (which is headquartered in Europe) has made the difficult decision to pull out of the Australian market.
While the exact reasoning for pulling it isn’t a simple linear explanation, I feel that given the current landscape and where we were positioned it is no surprise that the business was unsustainable and it was probably only a matter of time before tough decisions like this had to be made.
What this decision does impact is that it takes away my safety net for my return home, however I now have the opportunity to look into new ventures both in the United States and Australia (for the record I have no resentment to foodora as I understand the decision and it was a great place to work where I learnt a lot and met some awesome people), so there’s a silver lining there (shoutout Mitch’s tattoo).
Anyways, I want to keep the narrative of the blog on the “Thirty before 30” adventure and tell you guys all about DC and the awesome time I had while there.
So without further hesitation:
Picking up where we left off, I drove the roughly 1 hour South of Baltimore to the United States Capital Washington DC.
As I had two full days before the game (leaving Monday morning and the game was Tuesday night), I used my time rediscover this exciting city that I hadn’t been to since 2012!
First stop before checking into my hotel was of course the best named area of any city perhaps anywhere in the world. I’m referring to of course “Georgetown” which is almost like a separate village based in the North Western area of DC, just over the bridge from Arlington Virginia and home to Georgetown University (go Hoyas aka Bulldogs).
It is a beautiful part of the city, with houses that would not look out of place in San Francisco or the redeveloped parts of Surry Hills back in Sydney.
The University campus is also picturesque, and given the cloud cover and lower temperatures, I was able to spend a pleasant few hours checking out the entire area before getting back into the Nitro and checking in to my hotel – based right near the famous DC Zoo in the Woodley Park neighbourhood.
Once I was all checked in and showered, I drove down to the main “tourist” area of DC to once again check all the monuments and sites of town!
I remember the first time I came here, I was worried that I’d be bouncing all over town just so I could see everything. The beauty of this city however, is that everything is super close and walking from one monument to the next doesn’t take longer than 20 minutes.
After making my first stop at the White House, I walked down the street to the Washington Monument, and then visited everyone’s favourite President Abraham Lincoln at his memorial.
A weird thought I had while I was staring at Abe, was that what would Aliens or other intelligent life think if all humans were gone and they saw this giant statue in this temple? Would they think he was some god that we prayed to? Or just the ruler of the world or something? (shoutout Mark Williams who loves an Alien thought or two).
As I left Abe and let this weird thought marinate in my brain, I saw the monument to the World Wars (underrated memorial in my opinion) and also Capitol Hill where the United States Capitol is located.
Following this, it started to rain, and hard.
So I made my way back to my hotel and prayed that this would stop and prevent a delayed game the next day as I had already planned to leave DC for the long drive down to Atlanta ASAP.
Alas, the next day I woke up and of course it was still raining. Not just any rain either, that heavy stuff and as luck would have it, it was now also getting really humid (which is great when your a guy like me who almost exclusively wears grey t-shirts).
I decided that I’d park my car near the ballpark anyway at about 1pm, and spend the next 6 hours before the first pitch checking out the botanical gardens, museums and just relaxing.
As always with museums, I’m pretty useless at explaining them. So please let the pictures below do the talking (as an FYI I went to the Native American and Air/Space museum – both were awesome with top notch air conditioning).
Finally, it was time for the game, as the hometown Washington Nationals were retuning to town from a month long road trip to take on division rival New York Mets.
Before I get into the game, the stadium that the Nationals play in is another classic ballpark. Opening in 2008 and being right on the Anacostia River, the stadium has a large walkway near left field for fans to congregate whilst also having MASSIVE grandstands that provide you with views of the water and city.
The park was also home to both the All-Star Game and Home Run Derby in 2018, and with its close proximity to the city and feeling of space inside, I can see why it was rated as one of the best ever.
The actual game itself? Well there’s not much to say except it was one of complete domination that is rarely seen in any sport, let alone baseball.
No sooner had I taken my seat in the first inning (after checking out all the facilities), that the game was opened up with a GIANT 7 runs scored by the hometown Nationals.
Then the second inning came and they put on 3 more. Then the third came and they added another 3. Then the fourth came and what do ya know, 3 more. Once the fifth rolled around and the Nats added another 3 it was a brutal 19-0 lead heading into the fifth inning.
Finally in the seventh the Mets showed some resistance with a solo home-run to reel it back to 19-1 (there is not respect in that scoreline), before in the eighth the Nats would again smack in 6 to make it 25-1!!!
While the Mets did get 3 in the ninth, to make it look like there was an actual baseball game on, the Nats would celebrate being back home in by far the highest scoring game I’ve ever been do with a dominant 25-4 win (shoutout Eli who is a lifelong Mets fan and sent me the text you see below the box score).
Once the game was complete, I had decided I drive down to Richmond Virginia (about two hours south of DC), so I could offset the 11 hour drive down to Atlanta (making it only about 9).
It was an awesome time in DC, and much like most of the cities I’ve visited, I felt welcomed and would highly recommend anyone planning a trip to the East Coast of the US to make the effort and get down there.
I’ll now be in Atlanta for a couple of weeks as the Braves are on a road trip themselves, so will use this time to recharge, check out some of the sites around the South, gear up for the Atlanta Braves game on May 11 and of course, something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time, the NASCAR Race in Bristol Tennessee on August 18!
Have a good one all, and if you got any job leads, send ‘em my way!
Thirty before 30 