Our final day in D.C. went very quickly- minus the flight at the end of course. We started the day by walking to one of the Senate office buildings with over 800 other activists. We took a quick picture together, and then it was time to go our separate ways. Hundreds of students lobbying virtually every Senator in the United States- and at the same time too! We did our share by going to a meeting with Senator Bennett's aid Kami Capner. Our meeting was pretty quick- about 20 minutes in all, but during that time we showed Kami a short film made by STAND's national organization, pressed the importance of pending legislation, including the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery act as well as the Congo Conflict Minerals act. In addition, we expressed our concern for future legislation not yet brought to congress, encouraging the Senator to spearhead a project to create genocide-prevention legislation. After we spoke, we gave Kami the video, some summary sheets, and a full report by the Genocide Prevention Task Force to pass on to the Senator. Overall, the meeting went very smoothly and was definitely another success for STAND.
Our trip back home, however, has been very difficult! We were supposed to be back in Salt Lake City at about 11:30 Monday night, but as I write this it is about 8:45 am on Tuesday and we are waiting for a plane in Phoenix!
In order to get to Phoenix in the first place, we had to get to the Baltimore Airport. Don't ask me why we couldn't just take a plane from D.C's Reagan airport- Baltimore was for some reason much cheaper. But anyway, in order to get to Baltimore we had to ride the Metro subway for about 30 minutes and then catch a bus to Baltimore. This travel was for the most part uneventful, though at one point Jo Anne tried to throw away some paper from a distance and missed the trash can. Some guy then said "NBA Star, you aren't." He was right, but I'm fairly certain he wasn't an NBA star either. If he was, I would have asked him to come with us to Utah so he could remind my Utah Jazz that they still have to play in the 4th quarter.
Anyway, we got to the airport and boarded the plane. The plane then taxied out near the runway, but they then found out that the cockpit door wouldn't close. So we idled there for about 30 minutes until they discovered a mechanism for door-closery. But by then we had idled for so long that the plane didn't have the fuel to get to Phoenix, so we taxied back to the terminal, refueled, and headed back out- delaying us about an hour. We then flew what seemed like the longest flight in the history of man. During the flight I finished reading two books, Memoirs of a Geisha and The Stranger. I also started reading Gandhi's Autobiography, but I decided I didn't want to read any more. So instead I looked out my window. It was too dark to see anything; except when the lights of the plane flashed and I could see the wingtips like some really lame mid-air strobe-light rave-party. In truth I wasn't watching the wingtips though, I was staring at the inside of the window which was frosting over from the cold. I've never watched frost appear on anything before, but I can say that it takes a long time. Long time, luckily, was something I had, so I watched frost appear on the window. In a way it was kind of beautiful, how slowly it accumulated there, but before long I realized that I was watching frost appear on a window, so I took out my journal and started writing.
Jo Anne was asleep this whole time, and the woman sitting next to her was reading a Nicholas Sparks novel, though either she wasn't very interested or wasn't a very fast reader because throughout the course of the flight she only read about 20 pages. I never asked her about the book though.
Anyway, after all that junk we finally arrived in Phoenix and, of course, we missed the flight to Salt Lake City. They gave us a hotel voucher and told us to wait for a van to come from the hotel they had assigned us. The van didn't come for about 45 minutes. While we waited for it we were surrounded by a bunch of old people and army veterans smoking cigarettes and we were often talked to by the guy that sat next to Rollin, who was kind of crazy.
We made it to the hotel though, and they actually had a good breakfast for us this morning. In good spirits now, I am very much ready to come home. I need to get caught up in school and sleep in a comfortable bed. I don't know why I said those things in that order- those are just the things on my mind right now. That and going on facebook, which I think I'll do right now. Thanks for reading eh, and um... Don't fly US Airways?
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