I woke up this morning to the dreadful news of the plane crash in Washington DC. It's such a terrible thing to happen, the people on the plane were so near to landing, and now no one is going home. The only comfort, if you can call that, is everything happened in a snap second, hopefully no one will have felt anything. RIP.
The news reminded me of my previous visit to DC, a trip from quite a distant memory, something that I had nearly forgotten as I only have a handful of photos to remind me.
In my previous life, I worked for a joint venture between a UK and American telecoms company. The JV was supposed to conquer the global communications industry... so they said. We lasted for 2 years 🙂 I was the only person from the UK company to join the finance team in Hong Kong, the rest were from the American company. It was quite a culture change for me, working from a British environment to an American one, plus I felt I was an outsider dropped into a team that already knew each other. Luckily my new manager was very nice and treated me the same as the rest of her existing team.
During my time there, my manager engineered a trip to the US for me and one of my colleagues, this is how I ended up in Washington DC. The JV's main operation in America was in San Jose California on the west coast, and the finance operations at Reston in Virginia on the east coast. The main purpose of our trip was to meet with finance team in Reston. I think there was talk of us going to San Jose as well to meet with the operations team, but I honestly can't remember if that happened. I found this photo of me at the airport. The plane is too small to fly across the Pacific between Hong Kong and America, so I'm thinking maybe we did go to San Jose?
We had a free weekend at Reston and since it was so near to Washington DC, my colleague and I decided to go there. Neither of us had been before. We went to the main tourist spots, including the White House of course. This was a business trip and we hadn't planned anything in advance, let alone a tour of the White House. This was the nearest I could get to it.
The Washington Monument was outside the White House. I think at that time I didn't have much appreciation of the monument or even know what it was 😅. If it's outside the White House and lots of people are taking photos of it, then it must be important.
The Lincoln Memorial was something that I did know about. Who hasn't heard about Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech even if you haven't listened to the actual speech? We strolled over from the Washington Monument, it looked like a very nice day for a walk in this capital city.
This is the last photo I have of my Washington DC trip, standing on the steps of Lincoln Memorial looking towards Washington Memorial. If it wasn't for these photos and the sad news today, I would have forgotten about this trip. It's a little blurry and I wish I had better memories of it. Next time.
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Lovely memories, and you are so cute!!
Your experience in the new team reminds me of my present work for the US company. But without travelling to US 😅
Those were the goods days when we did a lot of business travel, that's the only thing I miss about not working now
International jet setter from the word go! Love these old photos of you and how awesome you have them to trigger the memories.
I do hope they find the air traffic controllers were white American so that Trumps theory that diversity hiring practices are one of the things to blame falls flat on its orange face.
What comes out of his mouth stinks worse than vomit 🤮
All my trips to Australia are real photos, I don't have anything digital. Need to dig them out sometime to get some Aussie pins on my map
What a trip down memory lane :). Just found out about the crash by your post!
Busy day at work? I wake up to the radio every morning, so always get the latest news
Flying is so much safer than it used to be, but we still get a bit of a wake up call when stuff like this happens. It can rattle you for sure. I haven't been to DC since I was a very young. I just remember a ton of walking and my little legs were so tired by the end of the day! I'd love to go back again one day.
I just don't understand how this could have happened 😔 Sounds like they've found the black box now, hope we'll all know soon.
I'd like to go back to DC again, and visit it properly
It sounds like it could be a number of factors. None of the ones the president mentioned though...
Oh, I haven't heard about that plane crash accident, it is so sad. Well, I don't read or listen to the news so that's why I haven't. (maybe I should indeed take the pilot training after reading this... 😅)
Even though you did not planned a touristic trip, you probably got the see the most important spots around the White House and Lincoln Memorial :)
It was a whirlwind visit for a day only, I'd like to go back again sometime and visit it properly
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Beautiful photos, a trip you enjoyed ❤️