D.C.

SW 622 Reflection 2: Jaye and D take D.C.

D’Corey Sullivan

The University of Mississippi

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Jaye and D take D.C.

As I am sitting here reflecting on all of the changes the world has seen in the last 3 weeks, I

can’t help but remember a more normal time. Part of me wanted to use to term “simpler time” but, I

feel like times now are more simplified than they have ever been. Don’t get me wrong I miss my daily

routines and I may be liking this whole quarantine a bit too much hence the reason this reflection is late.

It won’t happen again by the way.

To begin, in January I had begun planning my spring break trip. Interesting enough the initial

destination for our travel was Paris, boy am I glad plans fell through. My friends and I ended up just

planning a week’s trip to Washington D.C. to visit our other friend CJ, the flight attendant. I was so

excited about the trip and I couldn’t wait to take a week off from classes. If I’m being honest the break

from classes was what I was most excited for. Now, leading up to SB 2020 I started hearing more and

more about the COVID-19. I saw and read reports from the CDC about how there was a nasty virus in

China infecting people and even causing death. Fast forward to the first week of March and the last

week of classes before SB, the virus had made is way to the U.S. and we began to see headlines of

celebrities getting it. Granted, seeing the reports did make me a little nervous but, still, at this point, no

one knew how serious the virus was so I decided to take my trip anyway.

To add, days leading up to our flight mass hysteria started, people began to flock to grocery

stores buying all types of essentials. It took me 3 days to find Germ X and sanitizer wipes, two things I

needed for my trip. As stated earlier I wanted to go on my trip but I also knew that this virus seemed to

be serious and I had to protect myself. Our flight was on a Wednesday out of Atlanta, Georgia. We drove

to Atlanta that Tuesday and spent the night with another friend. The flight was at 5 AM so we got up

around 3 AM got dressed and headed to the airport. We were all equipped with masks, gloves, Germ X,

and sanitizer wipes. The entire time I was in that airport I refused to touch anything with my bare hands
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and wiped everything down I encountered. It was an early flight so there wasn’t a lot of people there

but, everyone must’ve had the same mindset because almost everybody had on masks and gloves, to be

honest, it was kind of creepy. When we boarded our plane, I wiped my entire seat, seatbelt, window and

the two empty seats beside me. When I fly, I like to pay for a wing seat for the extra legroom. After all,

I’m very tall, this time I got lucky because I had an entire row to myself.

Lastly, we made it to D.C. with no issues. The first day we got there everything was fine and still

running normally. We ate at great restaurant that Wednesday. Thursday morning, we got up around 6

AM and drove to NYC which is about a 4hr drive from D.C. When we arrived in NYC everything appeared

to be running normal restaurant still open but they did have more signs up about COVID-19 and about

hand washing. We ate at the great restaurant in NYC called Dallas Barbecue. They had something called

sticky wings on their menu and they were delicious they also have great drinks. We got to experience

NYC nightlife which was such fun. There were absolutely 2 things that I had to do while in NYC and that

was eating a slice of famous NYC pizza and get Chinese take-out in china town and I’m happy say I got to

do both. Sadly, our NYC trip was only for one day. Friday morning, we got up and drove back to D.C.

However, when we were in NYC a lot of places were starting to shut down like, some of the bars and

night clubs because of COVID-19. When we made it back to D.C. we decided to stay in that night and CJ

invited a couple of his friends over which were less than 10 people altogether. We called it Wings and

Wine night because we cooked chicken wings and everyone had to bring their favorite bottle of wine.

Saturday come and we decided to go sightseeing. Unfortunately, we couldn’t do any tours of any of the

museums because all of that was put to a stop because of the virus. We were able to rent these scooters

and ride around the capital seeing all of the monuments. Riding those scooters were the highlight of our

trip and the last fun thing I got to do on my SB break vacation. By Saturday afternoon all of the night

clubs had shut down all of the restaurants had moved to carry out and pick up only. Things took a turn

so quickly it was very nerve-wracking. Remember, CJ is a flight attendant so around Sunday he was
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starting to get calls from other people in the industry saying that they might be shutting down all

domestic travel. At that point, reality began to set in. I was so afraid I was going to get stuck in D.C.! I’ve

never longed to be back in little ole Mississippi so much in life until the thought of being stuck in a huge

district like D.C. Thankfully our flight was on schedule and we made it safely back to Oxford that Tuesday

evening.

In conclusion, as stated earlier I know this reflection is late so I tried to recount my feelings and

experiences from after reflection one up until the due date of this second one. Since then COVID-19 has

transformed into something we didn’t know was coming or even existed. I will speak more about my

current experience in the next reflection.