Picture it: October of last year. Fall is in full swing in Colorado, meaning 80° one day and freezing with snow the next. My best friend's birthday rolls around he'll be turning twenty.....somethingth (let's just keep the ugly numbers out of the picture for now). I'm feeling the itch of travel all over me, I mean for goodness sake - I haven't been out of my home state since the previous April and that was merely to Seattle! So I decide its now time to go out and take a little trip to D.C. again.
After getting, Stacy, my friend's girlfriend on board for the surprise I booked my standby ticket with another friend's help. Luckily I did get in on the Friday night as planned by barely making it on to the last flight for the night. Stacy, in her infinite wisdom, managed to get out of the house long enough to pick me up at the airport by picking a fight and then storming out supposedly in search of ice cream. At this point it was after 11pm so Mike in his own brand of wisdom decided to let Stacy go and head to bed himself. After an hour and a half of Stacy being gone, she returned, not with ice cream but with me!
But before we could surprise Mike with the last minute change-up, we first had to awaken him. I left that task to Stacy and as he rubbed away the confusion of seeing me standing in his living room, the surprise visit was complete. He and I stayed up talking for a few hours more that night, just catching up and then we both hit the sack as we had a very busy weekend ahead of ourselves.
There's nothing quite like protesting human rights abuses at foreign embassies bright and early on a Saturday morning for kicking off the weekend right. We went to the Chinese and Indian embassies in support of the monks of Burma and demanding that those governments with close ties to the military Junta in Myanmar use their influence to help end the atrocities occurring there.
It was amazing to be part of a movement like that, to feel the strength of all those gathered around you who feel strongly about bringing justice and peace to a country thousands of miles away. As we marched from embassy to embassy it felt like we were part of something greater than ourselves. Whether or not real change comes about because of our actions that day (as we have seen since then it hasn't), at least we did not sit idly by and say nothing. We made our voice heard for one moment and maybe those inside the buildings will easily forget us, but we will not forget and we will be back to fight against future injustice.
After such an adrenaline-filled morning Mike and I spent the rest of the day milling about Alexandria chatting and having coffee in our usual tradition. Sunday was no less excited as he managed to persuade me (didn't take that much persuasion actually) to get out on the ol' Potomac and do a little
two-man/woman kayaking. It was my first and hopefully not last time to kayak as I enjoyed it greatly.Of course we didn't hit any rapids and the few big rocks that were in our way were easy to navigate around [insert metaphor about life and navigating around rocks here...]
And finally a goodbye dinner at a pizza joint in Georgetown rounded off my visit. Then I was driven back to the airport to return to Denver and my life here. A quick trip but a good one. And hopefully a birthday surprise Mike enjoyed. After all you only turn twenty-somethingth once!
Happy 27th Birthday Buddy!(oops, the numbers slipped in after all)
