Here I am!

I have gotten some requests for a new blog entry (can't figure out why, its only been 1 month), so here we go...It was quite enlightening to realize people actually read this thing sometimes. Must have been a slow day on CNN.com.

So I went to Washington D.C. What to say about that...Let's just say it was AMAZING. One of the most fun trips of my life. Somehow through a twist of serendipity, and some sleight of hand on the part of Emily's brother-in-law, we ended up with a sweet 300C towncar for the Hyundai Accent price. We drove that sucker around DC all week, and people thought we were either really old or gangsters. I'm not sure which. I'm now wishing I had a picture of the car. Darn.

Let's play a game of "High-Lows" with this trip. For those of you who don't know "high-lows" it is a game taught to my by Emily (yes the very same one--she's very talented) and consists of making lists of events. You will soon see (its not complicated). If you have a college education you should be able to figure it out with minimal confusion.

Highs
-Monuments at night. My favorites were FDR and Jefferson.
-Holocaust Museum
-National Archives (letters from Fidel Castro as a child--see this website for a copy--http://www.archives.gov/research/state-dept/rg-84-foreign-service.html) If only we had given him 10 dollars... [link courtesy of Em]
-Gettysburg
-"The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millenium General Assembly"- Made of gold and silver tin foil, cardboard, Kraft paper, plastic over wood furniture, and glass. Created by some guy in his garage in DC for 14 years. Its meant for the 2nd coming. Yikes. (see picture #2)
-Becca and Matthias' (our hosts) amazing barbequed pizzas. You heard me right. Made on the BBQ.
-Harper's Ferry frozen custard stand
-A foreign family hiding their take-out food in a dumpster outside the Capitol tour so they could retrieve it later. Yep I watched that happen.
-Georgetown. All of it. If I run away someday that's where I went.
-Don's John. On the lawn of our nation's Capitol. I wanted to use it just to say I had. It was locked.
-Arlington National Cemetary. If I would have had any liquid in my body I would have cried at the Tomb of the Unknowns. Factoid: There are no unidentified remains from the Vietnam War. That tomb lies empty. Cool story if you want to hear it sometime.
-Running from the Capitol down the Mall in the early morning. AWESOME.
-Eating dinner in a restaurant by myself. Liberating, actually.
-The car pictured above. If you can figure out the rebus let me know. I was merely struck by the huge lettering. (see picture #5)


Lows
-Man wading in World War II memorial pond right next to a sign, "Show Respect. No Wading"
-Goose poop. Green and everywhere on the Mall. And on my DC shoes.
-Breaking heat records from 1930. 101 degrees and 80% humidity? No thank you.
-Man vs. Wild on the National Mall. 12 noon. Everyday. Who knew it was only 2 blocks across? Felt like the Sahara.
-Greek cab driver who decided that I must be a liberal and support public displays of homosexuality since I'm from California. Proceeded to give me a lecture on his very scary views on the topic.
-16 hour day in the city. x2.
-Swimming in a disturbingly warm Potomac River. Em and I wondered what was going on upstream.

Also, Becca and Matthias have the cutest son, Benjamin. He is hilarious. He could not remember my name so he called me "Friend" all week. I loved it. He also would yell out "See me!" for "excuse me" and "dotter" for all things unknown (e.g. "friend, look at the dotter!"). At one point he saw me doing Pilates in the basement and tried to convince me that I couldn't do it without a "movie," then went and pulled out his mom's Pilates DVD's. What a kid!

Just a disclaimer. This post really does not do the trip justice.