Best Last Weekend Is Making Headlines

So it's Friday afternoon and I get an IM from Niall (who we haven't seen around here for a pretty long time) saying he's in DC from London doing a little research at "the archives" and he's got a spare bed in his hotel and that I ought to come down for the weekend. I mull it. Why not? One Chinatown bus ride later (that makes it sound so simple, doesn't it?) and I was in DC, living the high life.

Niall's hotel was right next door to the Church's building called "The Barlow Center" where they have offices and dorms for interns.

A little further down the road I found the two patriotic paintings I'm most likely to someday hang in my home. When I took these pictures I thought they were identical paintings...sheesh, what was my deal? And it wasn't until days later that I noticed Honest Abe in the first one.


We met up with Brittany who happened to live down the street from the hotel and she walked us to the Lincoln Monument the secret way. We found ourselves intrigued by the frozen looking Potomac.

But just how frozen was it? We were dying to know. Because there were big chunks of ice frozen into new ice...it was tricky.

We searched for a proper rock but couldn't find anything of the sort (they probably all got cleared out from the city on account of the inaugurations) but Brittany did find a piece of wood (here's an action shot of the wood being tossed). Test Results: River was frozen enough to support a piece of wood.

This all happened in the shadow of this place. It has a Safeway. But there's a Trader Joe's across the street from Niall's hotel. Man! Could Niall's place have had a better location? (No.)

Along the secret path I found a secret door under a bridge that had been left open. Very National Treasure-ish, right? Turns out it was the entrance to an Indian burial ground. Full of cursed gold. Just the usual.

Here's a statue of a turtle. With a pegasus. Look hard, what do you mean you don't see the pegasus?

Destination reached!


Sorry, Abe. Sorry, sign. I tried so hard!

If you (like me) ever wondered what it looked like behind Abraham Lincoln, well, here you go. There's a plastic bag and an extension cord.

More frozen water. More wondering.

Brittany had to go teach cello so Niall and I were left on our own to survive in the District. We wound up on a tiny, uninhabited island with all the names of the signers of the Declaration of Independence engraved there. That's when I discovered my new favorite Planter, Button Gonzalez Gwinnett.

With nary a landmark in sight we continued our journey. Our desired final destination: the museum with all the planes and spaceships in it.

This is the Hirshhorn museum, not the Hiroshima museum, which is what I thought the map on the street had said.

At last! The Air and Space Museum! When I first visited DC (not counting trips as a baby) 5 1/2 years ago I went to the Air and Space Museum for about 10 minutes. This year's visit, almost as brief.




For the elderly cosmonaut.

Shane came to pick us up from lunch and while searching for his Passat I learned something very interesting: the Air and Space Museum has TWO sides!

Post Mexican I went over to the Holmes home. What a magnificent little reunion it was.

I asked Shane: "When you first heard 'No Sleep till Brooklyn' when you were in 5th grade, did you think that it would one day be your children's favorite song?" Also: there's another Holmes daughter (Adlyn), she's grown a lot since I first met her, she's awful friendly.

Listen. The DC Metro totally confuses me. I don't understand how to buy a ticket, I don't know the name of where I'm going, I don't know what direction it is in, I don't know where my ticket is going to pop out of after I insert it, I don't know why I had a ticket with pandas on it but when I went to refill it I wound up with an Obama ticket, and I especially don't know why there's pictures of Sasquatches holding coal in the Metro! Frustration!

Sunday morning, this was my breakfast: Irish oatmeal, just the way the leprechauns like it.

Then it was off to church with Brittany and her roommates. Did you know that people who live in DC sometimes live in houses? With multiple floors? And multiple basements? Like it's no big deal at all?

This is not where I went to church, but if I recognize it, it gets its picture taken.

So DC was totally awesome and I split right after church and very miraculously made it back to New York for Andy's birthday party which is another post for another time (even though I already sort of posted about it this week--but you're going to get more rigorous coverage than that.)

Thanks to all who made my spur of the moment trip excellent and if anyone wants to hang out with Niall, he's still down there for a few more days. And he's got a comfy extra bed (but the shower only works some of the time.)