The last few days of May

Memorial Day



The four of us roommates were deciding what to do on Memorial Day, so we ended up splitting up, and Janelle and I beat the crowds and wandered over to Dupont Circle. It's this great neighbourhood with plenty of pubs, cute boutiques,  and cafes. One thing DC doesn't have a lot of is chain restaurants. Other than Mcdonalds, and Starbucks (which is on every corner downtown), all the places to eat are local. We walked up Embassy Row, where there's about 50 embassies. The whole neighbourhood is nice, studded with beautiful gardens, expensive cars and big sidewalks. The most impressive embassies were Turkey (which has a mosque right beside it), South Korea, Ivory Coast.We walked around for about an hour and a half, and by then I was completely exhausted from the heat. It was about 100 degrees F by the time the afternoon rolled around. We sat down at this cafe called Cosi, enjoyed a great frappuccino in the shade and then continued on window shopping. In the middle of shopping, we stopped to stick our feet in the fountain at Dupont Circle. See video


Later we jumped on the metro and headed home in the evening. The first thing I did when I got home was have a cold shower to rinse all the sweat off. After a long day in the heat, a shower like that makes me feel human again (as my dad would say). After some down time, I walked to buy groceries, which is just a few blocks away. It was still so hot out, even after the sun had gone down, and it reminded me of Dallas.

Now I'm here, at the RAF (Residential and Academic Facility), in the computer lab. Most everyone else had their 1sts days at work, but I start tomorrow. So I took advantage of my day off, to do some more exploring of the city. I took the TWC shuttle to Union Station (which only takes about 10 minutes) and from there I walked to my number one destination spot of the day, the Library of Congress.

Library of Congress. The walls were engraved with

all these great sayings about books and knowledge.

The LOC (acronyms are so DC) has probably been my favorite site to see so far. I mean, they're all great, but my morning here was fabulous. I love books, and I love libraries; this was my kind of place. Thomas Jefferson's library was the coolest display there. I saw it from a far, looking down the hall, and it sent shivers down my spine. They had a Jefferson quote above to door that read, "I cannot live without books." I cannot express how cool it was to see. The books were in a glass casing, 6 shelves high, kind of in a spiral shape, so I could stand in the middle and gaze in wonder at all the amazing books. They have it organized like he did, according to Lord Bacon's table of science, the hierarchy of Memory (History), Reason (Philosophy) and Imagination (Fine Arts) to order his arrangement of books by subject. wow.

National Archives

Canadian Embassy, just a few blocks away
from the Capitol.

From there, I wondered down Constitution Ave. passed the Canadian Embassy to the National Archives. Because it was a Tuesday morning, I beat the crowd here, and walked right in. There are some nice displays there; I saw President Regan's cowboy boots with the Presidential Seal on the leg of the boot, but the obvious highlight here was the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. This building is quite impressive. The Rotunda, where these three documents are housed is dimly lit, because of the fragility of the documents, so it feels a bit eerie to walk around in there. There are guards everywhere, and they keep the people moving. The Constitution is in great shape, but the Declaration of Independence is quite faded. It's pretty incredible to see such historically significant documents.



I needed a pick-me-up from all that walking around in the heat, so I stopped at a little coffee, ice cream place because it reminded me of Italy. I had an affogato, which my Italian friend Jordan introduced me to awhile ago; it includes (in my opinion) two of man's greatest creations, espresso and gelato. Perfecto.



 My roommate grew up in Queens, and
she said our neighbourhood reminds her of it.

Since I was walking around the city like a strong, independent women, I stopped at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. It's not a Smithsonian, but it was beautiful with quite a varied collection. On my way there, I passed by Zara, H&M, and Forever 21 which I leasurly walked around in. I decided to head back home, but I got a bit lost because I read my map wrong. Unintentionally I ended up at Union Station which is another impressive building with large pillars, and arched ceilings. I came out at F Street, and walked to K Street, and finally made it home. Tonight I have my US Foreign Policy class, then tomorrow I start work.

FYI: Click here to see more of my pictures.