The Winter Awakens

As many of you know, the northeast was hit with a blizzard not too long ago. I'm still waiting for the snow to melt away in my neighborhood. I was unfortunate enough to be scheduled for work that Saturday. Work doesn't stop for anything so onwards to D.C. I went. Needless to say, I was stuck in D.C. for almost four days. It definitely was an interesting ordeal.

Just in case, I booked a hotel to share with some co-workers for Friday and Saturday night, then I would stay with a friend Sunday night if I needed to. It already started snowing around noon on Friday, many places closed early and I do believe a lot of people left work early as well. The hotel I stayed at was the Avenue Suites off Pennsylvania avenue. My co-worker booked it so I didn't know what to expect. As long as I had a bed to sleep on, I was content. However the hotel was surprisingly very nice.

It had a stocked kitchen, a nice sized living room with a pull out couch and two queen beds. So at least all three of us slept comfortably. The snow came down hard over night. We left around 6 am to walk to work. The road was somewhat plowed but the sidewalks were covered. The snow was deep and made it a struggle to walk so we walked on the road. Still, seeing the city so empty and snowy was quite pretty.

I stayed inside at work all throughout the blizzard. Still had to walk through the blizzard after work though. Surprisingly, a lot of people were outside playing in the snow and taking pictures. At some points, the wind was so strong that visibility was terrible. It really did kind of look like Hoth. I wish I was able to have gone out to take pictures in the midst of the blizzard but oh well.

Sunday morning, I went out bright and early to the national mall for some pictures. Surprisingly, there were already quite a few people there. Although it wasn't actively snowing anymore, the scenery was still very beautiful.

There is supposed to be a road somewhere underneath all that.

It may look deserted in this picture but there are actually a lot of people around me. The steps were closed due to safety concerns. That didn't stop one guy though.

This is exactly what I came for. The sunrise.

Only one half of the path was well cleared. The other half was a struggle.

Literally fell for this picture. I had forgotten there is a metal plate on the floor but I didn't see it since it was covered in snow. Fell pretty hard. Gladly no one saw that fall, unlike the day before where my co-workers took a picture of my fall.

Independence avenue was not very well cleared and the path around the tidal basin along with the parking lot was not cleared at all. I struggle just to get towards the water and had to be careful about not falling into the basin. I am the crazy person who sat at the edge where there is no fence to take this picture.

The rare sight of an empty Constitution.

Snowball fight at Dupont.

Well I would have been stuck in D.C. up until Wednesday if my parents hadn't had such bad cabin fever and actually offered to pick me up from Ballston Monday night. The metro had been down all through the weekend, only went to underground stations Monday, still had the Silver line closed Tuesday, and didn't fully reopen until Wednesday. I might have gone crazy if it had come to that. Oh well, we will see if mother nature gives us another blizzard this year before winter ends.