Richmond's Own (but unowned) Website

 
 
(There's a West Wing episode called 20 Hours in America. Is it better if I don't explain the titles? I feel it's kind

On Sunday, Carolyn met up with us, and she, Adam, and I proceeded to walk out to the mall, walking by the rather interesting street van vendors. We did go back to the National Air and Space museum, so I could get my picture of the Enterprise model (and go by very pricey space food!).
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Enterprise is in DC!
While we were waiting for Katie and Stephanie to come down to DC, we went into the museum of the American Indian. While perhaps the exhibits don’t display the best story, the atrium is sure beautiful, especially with prisms that shoot rainbows all over the four storey (British spelling!) atrium. We spent some time discussing possible uses for extra ledge space – totem poles or performance space perhaps?
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Prisms!
After that, we met up with Katie and Stephanie over at the Natural History Museum – saw the large diamond, and some elephant evolution side exhibits. Then we went through an extensive special exhibit on race. Some very deep stuff in there, I really enjoyed the parts about education.  We headed north, passed through the street where Taste of DC was happening, but we passed by the street where it was happening! Though we walked by and ate at Au Bon Pan – interesting change in the order of sandwich preparation vs the order the orders were put on the counter. But we got everything.

Next, we walked back and headed down to cross the tidal basin, over to the other side with the Jefferson Memorial. Very large, lots of steps, columns, and marble! We all sat on the steps for a little while, looking north up over the basin to the White House. There were quotes around the central statue, and some museum displays below.

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Jefferson...Airplane?
Adam and Carolyn had to head back to GW, but Stephanie, Katie, and I continued making our way around the basin. We went to the FDR memorial, which traced FDR’s presidency chronologically through a series of waterfalls – love water features! Though we ended up going backwards through the timeline – but it was a very different kind of memorial, and I really enjoyed it.
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Water Feature!!
Then we went to see the new MLK Jr Memorial, it was quite crowded, probably because it’s the newest memorial, but it was very great to see too – very tall, but the mountain symbolism made a lot of sense with the quotes.
We walked back up toward the Washington Monument afterwards, and saw Marine One land on the White House lawn! Well we didn’t really see it actually land, we saw the three of them fly over and land behind the trees. Though we waited around and saw it take off!
We went back up to the Museum of Natural History – walked through the mammals, ice age, oceans, and dinosaurs. Afterwards, the three of us decided to go eat at Potbelly Sandwiches. We got there about 10 minutes before their closing time, but the woman working was super nice and super fast too! We ate outside – next door was a sports bar…the whole thing had a rather London feeling about it. When we finished, Adam came back and met us, and we all sat and talked for a while. We walked around a bit afterwards, and had fun kicking a stick! But then we went to the Metro station and all had to say our goodbyes.

I had a great time seeing some of my Fulbright peers again – it was great too that we all sort of gelled back together, even though it felt like it’s been a long time since we’ve all been together. Was very glad to also get a real break (and my eyes off the computer!), and have a nice relaxing weekend with friends!

Monday I came back up to Ithaca. Had an hour or so to myself in DC, so I went down to the Capitol in the morning before getting on the train. The DC Union Station is quite nice as well! The train was packed (Columbus Day = travel day, should have figured that out sooner). Had a good train ride up, and I ran up to the Port Authority to catch an earlier bus (though in retrospect, maybe it would have been nice to spend a few hours in the city – perhaps next time when I don’t have as much stuff to carry!) On the way up, was treated to a nice sunset though! And now back to 7 more weeks in the college marathon…

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