Day 7 – America’s Favourite Pastime



Sunday, August 29, 2010

So now we have been here a full 7 days and it really doesn’t feel like that long.

Today we woke up in Philly nice and early so we could catch our 9.33 train (delayed until 9.50 because the train wouldn’t turn on!) from the city centre. The Station was amazing with a huge ceiling and Greek style columns; similar to Grand Central and Union station in DC. The tracks here are even worse than ours in the UK and the trains never top about 110mpg. As a result it took around 2 hours to do the 130ish miles between cities.

On getting to DC we got the metro to Glenn’s work where Cindy and Amy met us slightly later. We then drove to the Washington National’s stadium in central DC (‘The District’ as they say here). The game was great though the weather was unbearable! Around 36 degrees all afternoon long, and we had to sit in the sun which inevitably had us covered in sweat and drinking water almost as quickly as we could buy it. We also had our first hotdogs at the stadium so as to keep with American tradition!

The whole afternoon was great and had a really nice atmosphere. Almost every American sports cliché was fulfilled, except cheerleading which apparently is done more at basketball and ‘football’ games. There was popcorn, light beer, foam fingers, mascots, American pride anthems and even a section dedicated to the armed forces where everyone stood up and applauded the servicemen that made it to the game. As for the game – the National’s won which was great. The score was 4-2 and there was a homerun for good measure.

After, we had a break and then went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner. Amy’s choice since it was her last night in the country. We both really enjoyed the food. Now to bed before our first day of the sights here in DC tomorrow!

Photo(s) of the day: The Baseball game in full swing (ball can be seen in the air), Lauren being a true National’s fan in her cap, and the mascot Screech.