My favorite memory was when my mom and I went to see my brothers in Washington DC last summer. We left here at 6:00 am and made the first stop in New Jersey for some breakfast in Dunking’ Donuts. At 1:00 pm we got to DC and watched the World Cup game in the hotel. We were waiting for my brothers to finish work before going to see them. Finally around 7:00 pm we drove the five miles to their place. We got lost and I had to call my brother to help us find the house. They live in a neighborhood of hundreds of apartment buildings all close together. My brother came out and found us on the street.

I was so excited to see him because I hadn’t seen him for seven years and I didn’t know if it was him. He took us to the apartment where I saw my other brother. I did not recognize him any more either. We went out to have Mongolian Barbecue for dinner – my brother’s choice. We took some picture together before we came back to their house. At 10:00 pm my mom and I went back to the hotel. The next day we went to the National Zoo but it was so hot that the animals didn’t want to come outside. After we left the Zoo we had dinner in a restaurant called Pollo Campero - a restaurant where we used to eat when we were in my country.

The next day, July 4th, we went to the White House, the Washington Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial. We had dinner in Chinatown at Tony Chang’s and later that night, we sat on the lawn of the Capitol and watched the fireworks. That night it was so beautiful outside and thousands of people from all over the world were there but more special was that my brothers were there with me. It was so important to me because I haven’t seen them for a long time and I wanted to see them pretty badly. It was nice to talk to them in my two dialects, to share stories of the past and to eat homemade tamales – our favorite food in my country.