Mr. Iba goes to Washington

I started this journey with the thought, how am I going to pay for this? I have to come up with enough money to live without a job for 4 months. As a college student, I just didn't have 5 grand sitting around, nor, 5 grand worth of stuff to sell. So I looked up the local medical testing center and became a lab rat. They payment was 4 grand to just take some pills. Sounded easy enough. I drove to Salt Lake City every morning and evening for a month faithfully, took the pills and drove back. It ended up being a good thing because I was able to start making it to my morning classes. I wasn't sure if it was going to be worth it, taking these pills that made me feel less than par, but as I boarded that plane things started to feel a lot better.
I left Salt Lake City yesterday (May 1st) first stop Denver airport for a long 3 hour layover. That is a huge airport. I was talking to my good friend Dave Boyd on the Blackberry as I sipped down an over-priced airport jamba juice. He told me that the Denver airport is the supposedly the New World Order head courters. There are some really weird paintings in that place. I walked around and saw paintings of dead babies and just weird stuff. Huge wall hangings and a big time capsule that was placed by the free masons. That was kind of cool. Ipod blaring to Girl Talk I over heard them saying that it was time to board. "First Class and Red Carpet is now free to board". I sat their because my ticket said seating group 7. After the higher paying customers all got on they announced, "we are having a delay due to maitence on the plane's engine. This lady that ended up being from L.A. looked over at me and said "Engine?". I chuckled and said "well at least the engine won't give out on us".
She was going to visit a boyfriend or something in DC. She seemed nervous. I didn't dare ask if this was their first meeting off of G-Chat. They told us we were going to end up staying the night and they were picking up the bill. Flashes of my trip to Bermuda came into my head, because last time this happened they hooked me up with a free plane ticket. I was almost excited. After waiting in line for about 20 mins with the other DC bound passengers they announced that they were boarding. Internet boyfriend girl grabbed her over sized purple purse and started running back to the gate. I thought to myself "are we going to miss this plane?" Of course! so I started jogging behind this girl that was sure we were going to miss this flight. We were fine. The free hotel giving desk wasn't that far from our gate.
After boarding I was a little excited to be back on the move again in the right direction. It was a good feeling once I sat down. The only problem was that the person that was sitting in my spot the flight before left the reading light on and it was aimed right in the right spot so it glared my glasses. I reached up to push it in like it was a light in a car. The light was at least 100 degrees. Its hard to type this right now. It hurts every time I press I, the comma button, and K button because the tip of middle finger has a blister on it. The problem was despite it being so hot I kept pushing it thinking that I just hadn't pushed it hard enough. I found out later that there was a button on the arm rest next to the volume control for the on flight movie. ouch, I, ouch, I, ouch.

We finally landed 3 hours and 34 mins later in Washington Dulles airport. The wrong airport. I should have gone to Washington Regan, It's walking distance from my new apartment. After picking up my luggage, one large black suit case I used on my LDS mission, and one red suit case that belongs to my Step-Mom Tami. I drug them to the taxi post and said "Crystal City Please". My driver was from Pakistan and I found it funny because my internship is with the Afghanistan Embassy. They are next door neighbors. I'm not sure how friendly they are to each other, but he was nice and knew right where to take me. Unfortunately my apartment had no idea who I was.

I pulled my luggage into this nice apartment complex and wheeled my bags across the marble or granite floors to the front desk where a big lady sat and said "hello sir who are you?". I with Utah Valley University and they should have a key or something for me. She said she had no record of me coming. "Cant you call someone that you have been working with?". I'll try I said but its 12:00 on Friday night, I doubt she is in her office at school. She gave me a look like, don't you be a smart ass. "go sit over there on the couch and I'll see what I can do". I sat down and played BrickBreaker on my Blackberry. She yelled over to me, "Come on over son". She took me up to the girls apartment that was over the students. She was sick and in bed already, but we got her up. She said "you're early, you aren't suppose to be here till next week". Ooops I said, now what? she gave me a key and brought me to my room. At this point I hadn't eaten anything but that Jamba Juice in Denver. I decided to make my first venture into DC, well Virgina.

I walked outside and I could see people spilling out of the bars up the road. I thought well maybe there is a place to eat if I go in the other direction. Nope, just me talking on the phone to mom telling me to be careful. I decided to go against her better judgement and walk up by the drunks leaving the bars. O thank heaven, there was 7-11. One tuna fish sandwich, 2 hard boiled eggs, lime chips, and a blue Gatorade I was off to my apartment. I ate it all up as I watched the office season 3 on my Ipod. funny.

I woke up this morning, unpacked my stuff and went out to see what I could find. I walked to the subway and after looking at the map for about 25 mins, I made my way into the National Mall area. I went to Barack's house. The White House is really rad. I had no idea it was so nice. Well I assumed it was nice but whatever... it was the white house. I wasn't expecting to see guys with AK-47's standing on the top. That was weird, also a Monk praying and playing a drum on the outside was kind of cool to stand and watch. I'm not sure if he was protesting or just praying.

I made my way up the the Washington Monument and I just kept thinking of that part on Forest Gump when Jenny was a hippy and she ran out into the lake pool thing while Forest spoke at the rally. Funny. They have little pillars for every state surrounding some fountains. I went up and found Utah's and said out loud "If I ever see you again, it will be Zion to me". (for those of you who don't know that is was Eliza says to her husband as he joins the Mormon battalion in the movie Legacy) It started raining so I walked back to the subway. That was about a 30 min walk. I talked to my friend Kate Loveless, Kate Ayer, Dave Boyd and mom all the way back home. I sat in the subway station waiting for a blue line train to come but 5 trains later I found out that there are two levels and the Blue line train goes down there. Crap!

I got home and was hungry from walking around. I found a diner up by the bars and 7-11. I got a cheeseburger and fries to go. Stopped by the 7-11 and got some Mountain Dew and went home. My first whole day done.