“Or, Two Things in Six Hours in Washington DC”
I know what you’re all thinking; you say that tagline and went, “oh, no, not this again.” Relax, I assure you that I am not twenty-seven seagulls in a trench coat this time around. Not yet, anyway. This time I’m one awkward man-child in a checkered shirt, attempting to enter the country of Sweden with nothing but a passport and a backpack full of dreams. And also several medications, please do not confiscate them from me I need them for my cholesterol.
Much like getting into any other country long-term, part of the process of getting into Sweden is applying for a residence permit/visa thing. In my case, I’m lucky because I’ve been accepted to that graduate program at Stockholm University, so my permit application gets expedited. Instead of taking seven months to approve, it only takes four to five months. Yay? However, in order to guarantee that I can have the expedited application process, and to make sure that I am who I say I am (and not seagulls in trench coat), I had to go confirm my passport with the Swedish Embassy. In person. In Washington DC. At 9am. On a Tuesday.
So, much to my chagrin and the disappointment of my wallet, I was required by the Swedes to travel to America’s capital city and present myself before the embassy. Why they couldn’t do this at the Chicago consulate I have no idea. But the upside of this is that I got to visit Washington DC for a day, which was quite enjoyable. I haven’t been there since, like, 2016, and things sure have changed a lot since then. This time around, though, instead of having a week with my family, I had approximately six hours from plane ride to plane ride. And I was going to pack in as much as I could into that six hours, by jove, as long as the Swedish Embassy didn’t take forever. I was determined.
So I booked a flight, got up at 3:30AM, flew into DC, took the metro directly from the airport into the city (isn’t public transportation magical?), walked to the Swedish embassy, and sat in line for like thirty minutes. After a while, and after the other folks who had been there before got their passports checked, I went up to the lady at the counter and handed her my booklet. She looked at it. She looked at me. She looked back at the passport. “Alright you’re good to go,” she said, with a Swedish accent. “Are you sure?” I asked, stupidly. “Yes. You’ll finish the process in Stockholm.” “Oh.” And then I left.
So my migration verification process, for which I had to dedicate an entire day and spend several hundred dollars to fly to Washington DC, took all of five minutes. You know what? I’m ok with that. It could have been a lot worse; I could have been in a DMV situation where you sit in line for three hours and then when you get to the front of the desk, the attendant shits themself and you have to go the back of the line again. I’ll take the easy process over the paperwork any day. I just don’t understand why it had to be DC. I suppose they did tell me they were offering openings in Chicago in July, but I’ll be in Europe in July (and not in Sweden), so that wouldn’t really work. But why couldn’t they…? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Bureaucracy is its own containment protocol.
So then I was left with approximately three hours of free time before my flight back home. I had two options; I could take the train back to the airport and sit around and play Tears of the Kingdom, or I could walk around the National Mall and monument-watch. I opted for the latter, and left the embassy. I followed the Potomac river upstream(?) then and, in doing so, passed by some notable, if dubious, monuments before even getting to the mall. Like the sewage overflow I mentioned earlier! And the Watergate Hotel!
Eventually I made it to the National Mall, and almost walked in front of a speeding police escort on the way. It was wild to see a police car, tailed by two big, black, tinted-window Humvees, and corralled by a further police car, screaming with their sirens and lights down the road. It was especially wild to think that, huh, anyone could be in that vehicle. Foreign diplomats? Senators? High-ranking lobbyists? One of them made eye contact with me, I’m sure. That will likely be the closest I ever get to real power.
But once on the mall, I visited the big typical sights. There was the Lincoln Memorial, where Abraham Lincoln, head once more intact, sits forever memorialized in stone. I swung by the gift shop that sits just behind his left leg. After that, I visited the Korean and Vietnam war memorials, which are still exceptionally moving. This being the week before Memorial day, there were a lot of veterans and flags around, mixed in with the hordes and hordes of schoolchildren, presumably all on their end-of-year or graduation trips to the capital. There were probably more schoolchildren per capita that day than the Scholastic book fair. It was, frankly, a bit overwhelming to turn around and see four ragtag eighth-graders barreling towards me, bowling over a man in a wheelchair on their way.
What was also bizarre was the number of religious services happening at the Lincoln Memorial. I counted at least two distinct groups, with a handful of proselytizers on the steps handing out pamphlets about how to be saved by Jesus. One of the groups sang Amazing Grace for an hour. The other one was… well, they had an American flag, the South Korean flag, the Israeli flag, big yellow signs that said “JESUS SAVES” and “TRUST IN JESUS,” and they were all speaking in, presumably, Korean. I don’t have any issue with people practicing their faith in public, but it’s the Israeli flag that really threw me for a loop. They know… they know they’re Jewish over there, right? I don’t think they want to be saved through Jesus. He already tried that. So if someone can help me figure out what denomination I just witnessed, that would be great.
After being thoroughly confused by whatever was happening there, I made my way up the mall towards the Washington Monument, also passing the World War II memorial on the way. That one’s pretty sizeable, and it’s also a conflict that I had family participate in, so I spent some extra time there. I bumbled around there for a while, watching people harass ducks and trying to get tickets to the top of the tower but realizing they were all sold out. Probably a long time in advance, no less. It’s well enough, my time was coming up to an end already anyway. I then made my way towards the White House, which was a surprisingly lengthy walk from the Washington Monument, but found that several roads were blockaded around the president’s mansion, with extra security, too. That may have been related to the, uh, failed terrorist attack that happened that same morning. Some guy tried to crash a U-Haul into the White House and kill the president, I guess. I hadn’t even heard about this until after I got back home, which goes to show you that either, a) these things are so common they no longer make headlines, or b) it was kept on the down-low on purpose. Welcome to America, folks.
After seeing the White House from quite a distance, though, it was time for me to head on home. I grabbed some lunch at a grilled cheese bar (who knew those existed?), hopped back on the train (which was, once again, super easy), and got to the airport with plenty of time to spare. I was home by 5PM. It was, indeed, a bit of whirlwind day, with barely any sleep to go around, but it was kind of fun and a little sureal to say that, yeah, I woke up in Chicago, went to Washington DC, filled out crucial visa paperwork, and was back in Chicago by dinner. The power of modern technology, I guess? It was pretty wild, and I’m glad that I had some time to wander around and see some cool stuff once again. And it all takes me one step closer to moving to Sweden.
Oh, one last note: in the airport on my way out of town, they had a bunch of flags commemorating the different armed conflicts that the United States has instigated/participated in. That makes sense, it is DC after all. They’ve got Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, the… other ones, I guess? And they’ve got WWII. And the World War II one is, well, it’s this:
When did World War II become gay? I must have missed that part in my history class. I’m sure there’s a perfectly good reason for the use of the rainbow on this flag, something about how it was a united, world effort by countries all across the board, and the colors represent the rainbow of flags displayed by the Allies. I’m sure there’s a reason for that, but I can’t help but see anything other than “World War II is gay.” And you know what? I think it should stay that way. Committing war crimes is for everyone. Our military is inclusive in its destruction of human life. This is America, land of the free because of the gay, baby. Hoo-rah!
Well, that’s about all for Washington DC. It was a fun time! I’m a history buff, so three hours poking around monuments is three hours well spent. But speaking of history, fun fact before you go; when this blog goes live on Tuesday, May 30th, I’ll be in Greece! I’m on vacation this week, celebrating my grandfather’s 80th birthday, but you can bet your bottom-looking-for-top dollar that there will be a post with lots of photos from Greece in the coming weeks. As a matter of fact, there will be a lot of posts with photos generally this summer; I’m doing a lot of traveling before traveling (permanently) to Sweden. Much like grapes in a box for a child’s Halloween party, keep your eyes peeled.
