With three weeks on the dock in Annapolis, I began looking at a map to see which nearby cities we could easily transit to for a weekend getaway. Washington DC was just 30 miles away and I’d heard there was a cheap bus that runs there. So, I booked us an inexpensive hotel close to the station where the bus would drop us off. Unfortunately, when looking up the bus schedule, I failed to check the weekend schedule and realized the bus doesn’t run on the weekends. The only way we could get there using public transit would be to go all the way up to Baltimore then back down to DC, which would take an entire day. Instead, we ended up spending $60 each way to take an Uber.
Due to COVID, you need a timed entry ticket to go to any of the museums that were open, and some places, like the Capital and the Air and Space Museum, were still completely closed. Since this was a last-minute trip, we weren’t able to get tickets to anything. Luckily, the Library of Congress wasn’t too busy and we were able to get same-day entry. I’d only been to DC once before and remembered the Library of Congress being one of my favorite stops. We spent some time enjoying the air conditioning and walking through an exhibit on mapping of the early Americas. The exhibit also featured Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 map of the world, which was the first map on which the word “America” appears. I learned that America is named after Amerigo Vespucci, the Italian explorer who set forth the concept that the lands that Christopher Columbus sailed to in 1492 were part of a separate continent.
Unable to enter any of the other museums to seek refuge from the heat, Eitan and I cruised the National Mall by electric scooter. This was great until we started to realize the strict rules DC has imposed on these rented scooters. I was quite confused why our scooters seemed to stop working until someone told us they are depowered when you get close to the monuments. And, when we tried to park them to finish our ride, there are limited places where you can leave the scooter to prevent the most touristy areas from becoming a parking lot. But, since I hadn’t been to DC in several years and Eitan hadn’t been since high school, we still had a blast exploring all the sites. The following day we took the subway over to Arlington National Cemetery before heading back to Annapolis, spending another $60 on an Uber to get back.
The following weekend we had plans to go and visit one of my college friends who now lives in Philadelphia. Learning from my previous public transit oversite, I researched how much it would be to get us to Philly and was surprised to see train tickets were quite cheap, only $20 leaving from Baltimore. After confirming plans with my friend, I went back to the Amtrak website to book the tickets and was shocked to see the price had jumped from $20 to $80 per person, one way! On top of that, we would have to take an Uber up to Baltimore, another $100 round trip. What was supposed to be an affordable weekend getaway was turning into another expensive trip! We briefly looked into renting a car but that option didn’t seem to be much cheaper and then we would have to worry about where to park it for a weekend.
I debated for some time whether to cancel on my friend Melanie, who is one of my sorority sisters from college. Since she had moved to the east coast for dental school, I knew it had probably been a while since she’d seen anyone from college and I could tell she was excited to have us come visit. I was also excited to see her, too, and catch up, since we had graduated almost 9 years ago. Although I’m not making any money, I didn’t want to look back on my time here and think I missed out on a special weekend because I didn’t book that train ticket sooner.
That Friday, Eitan and I finished our last day on the motor yacht and celebrated with drinks on the train to Philly. My friend Melanie picked us up at the train station and brought us to her beautiful apartment. Being in a city, I wasn’t expecting much more than a pull-out couch and shared bathroom, but was surprised to have a huge bedroom and bathroom all to ourselves. After sharing bunk beds and a tiny bathroom on the boat for three months, it felt like we had rented a huge Airbnb! We had a wonderful evening with Melanie and her boyfriend and went out to a local beer garden in West Philadelphia (enter the Fresh Prince theme song).
We spent our only full day in Philly as we did in DC, just walking around the city seeing all the sites until our feet hurt and we almost had heat stroke. We found the public transit system in the city to be excellent and we were able to cover a lot of ground, but avoided paying to go into any of the attractions, since most entry fees were $20 or more. That evening, Melanie invited us to have dinner and drinks at her friend’s rowhouse and we had some of the most delicious Chinese takeout I’ve ever tasted. While it was cool to see a new city, feeling a bit of normalcy by spending a weekend connecting with friends and sharing stories made this trip truly exceptional and most worthwhile. We couldn’t leave Philly without sampling their famous cheese steak sandwiches, so we had our final Philly-Feast then hopped on the train for our trip back to Annapolis
