It’s an obelisk! It’s a rocket! It’s the Eye of Sauron! Noooooooo.....it’s the Washington Monument!

I get homesick pretty easy. So it was a little tough coming to the end of a week here, and realizing that it was going to be many more until I saw my family again. However, I can say that today was one day where I really did get excited about knowing that I would be in D.C. for the next few months, and would have the opportunity to do and see and learn about so many wonderful things here.

I woke up early enough to exercise downstairs (haven’t quite weaned myself over to the gym yet; I hope to do that Monday, though!) and take a nice shower, washing my hair thoroughly, and eat a quick small breakfast before going with Valerie to our ‘living room’ to meet up with whoever wanted to go a-touring. Valerie is pretty good at organizing groups and planning things-to-do, which is a great advantage to me as her roommate. All I have to do is tag along with her wherever she goes, and I end up with a big group of people doing something fun and far more adventurous than I would dare to do on my own.

There weren’t very many of us, just Valerie and me, Brad (tall, curly hair, friendly) and Andy (tall, looks like Unc, has an air of melancholic irony about him, but we all like him anyway), and Jamie (super nice, cute—have I been through this before?). I was actually glad there weren’t more people—it’s easier to get along and move along in a small group. And by the end of the day I felt like we were pretty good friends. It’s funny how quickly folkloric patterns start to develop among friends—we were already referencing earlier conversations with just a few words and coming up with our own “shorthand speech” after a few hours.

Our first plan was to see the Jefferson Memorial and then the National Museum of American History or something (I was hoping for “something,” since I’d already been there...but of course, I never did find Dorothy’s ruby red slippers before closing time, so I was going to have to go back anyway), but we actually ended up getting tickets for 12:00 to see the Washington Monument, and just went to look at the World War II Memorial while we waited. Incidentally, at the Washington Monument we asked a guide what the difference was between “monument” and “memorial,” and he told us that a monument meant the person knew about its construction prior to his or her death, and a memorial was made in memory of someone after he or she had died. Pretty interesting, huh?

The World War II Memorial was beautiful and rather sobering. It’s hard to describe, but it was basically a large pool with many small fountains (states and countries that fought for the Allies), and two large fountains to stand for the Atlantic and Pacific. There were also wreaths and pillars with the names of the states/countries.

That’s the Lincoln Memorial in the background of this last one. It looks much closer than it is, I promise you.

I overheard a guide leading people on a tour, telling them emphatically that each generation needed to remember that World War II proved how far a civilized and respected society—Germany—could fall into cruel and corrupted ways, and how it was a warning for the United States. I was impressed by his passion, especially as he stated that this idea of “looking back on the past in order to better the future” was really the business of all the memorials and monuments in D.C.

Noon came fast, and we walked up to the Washington Monument, which looked even more humongous the closer you got. It’s pretty much the only skyscraper in D.C., and was once the tallest building in the world (until the Eiffel Tower...). It’s about 555 feet tall, and is still by far the tallest building in D.C. We had to wait about 30 min. after noon to get inside, so we watched pigeons—Hannah, this is for you!

Once we got inside, ran all of our stuff through an X-ray machine just like in the airport (fortunately, they didn’t confiscate my water bottle, but they did make me hold it in my hand so they could see that it was just water) :) I suppose riding in an elevator is sort of similar to riding in an airplane...at least we would be quite high in the sky! The elevator used to be run by steam, and it took people 10-12 minutes to get to the top. Now it only takes 70 seconds. Our guide was fun. He talked all the way to the top and stopped exactly when the elevator did. He asked a little boy what his name was (Brian), and then asked Brian to push “500” on the elevator to take us up. I thought that was kind of cute, and it turned out to be extremely funny for us later when we heard him ask another guy on the elevator going down—presumedly, so he could hit the button—what his name was, and it turned out to be “Brian” as well!

There’s a neat observation deck on the top floor, with views looking out from the windows at the top of the monument, and I took pictures from all four views. It’s one of the best things I have to a map now, at least!

That’s the WWII Memorial, the Reflecting Pool, and the Lincoln Memorial. Oh, and see that bridge over to the upper right? (Not the one on the upper left) Guess what crazy person was walking on the side of that bridge across the Potomac River just last week?!? That’s right, yours truly. Honestly, it’s too bad there wasn’t someone on the top of the Washington Monument right then to warn me or something with the flashing red light that I was going the wrong way. Duh! By the way, I couldn’t help thinking how much seeing the flashing red light on the Washington Monument reminded me of the Eye of Sauron on the top of Baradur...which is a little bit creepy! But the fact that it’s white instead of black is a good difference, I guess.

Here’s a far off view of the Jefferson Memorial (“Memorial” meaning he was dead when...ok, just checking), again from the top tier.

The hexagon-building in the middle is the Holocaust Memorial museum. I’m really, really excited about going there, even though I know it’s a very painful experience, it costs money, and I’ll be completely exhausted by the time I’ve seen everything. But honestly, it’s one of the few places I’ve actually read about and stoked myself in preparation for. There was a phase in my teenage years when I got really interested in the Holocaust and read as much as I could about it, so I am really looking forward to just taking in as much as I can.

Thought y’all might like a view of the Ellipse and the White House. I’m guessing the white tents have something to do with the upcoming inauguration, since you don’t normally just have stuff in the Ellipse. And I think that that tree in the middle of the picture is the National Christmas Tree...but it wasn’t labled on the map, so I can’t be 100% positive. My museum is somewhere in the upper right of the picture, and the Barlow Center is way off in the upper left. So really, this is, like, my route to and from work every day. It looks so simple and easy!

Here’s the Mall and the U.S. Capitol (which I still haven’t gotten close to yet). The National Museum of American History is the big building in the lower left, and the Smithsonian Castle (where Valerie works!) is the brown pointy thingamajig in the middle-right. And those little black things everywhere are ants...no, wait, people.

On the way down, there were some nice exhibits about the monument, and I thought it was interesting that the shape was designed to look both like something very ancient—an Egyptian obelisk—and something very new—a space rocket. On the elevator ride, our security guard slowed down the elevator enough for us to see some of the ornately carved or signed blocks donated to the monument. Some of them were very large and elaborate!

After the monument, we were all kind of hungry, but couldn’t decide where to go to eat. We eventually ended up taking the Metro to Chinatown, apparently named because of the rows of Chinese stores and restaurants along the streets. There were also many fancy Chinese-looking decorations!

Our point of going to Chinatown was to meet up with Emily for lunch and visit the National Portrait Gallery/American Art Museum together, but Emily was eating at The California Tortilla and my group really wanted to try Chinese food, so we ended up going and finding another place, called—I think—The Chinese Express. The most attractive thing about the restaurant was the fact that you could watch a guy through the store window making the noodles. I took a picture after he had finished, and he clearly saw me, but never cracked a smile. I guess he’s used to lots of people taking pictures...or maybe he was insulted, which would make me feel bad...but then again, why not take a picture if he’s going to do something cool right in front of a window?

Inside, the restaurant was small and crowded and didn’t smell all that nice... but the food was served in plentiful amounts and I thought mine tasted pretty good (despite the overload of sauces, seasonings, and spices, and the crunchy bones in our jointly-ordered dish of “roast duck”). Side note: I DID bring my own lunch to eat, but felt bad about doing so in front of everyone in the restaurant, and so (I know, I’m so wishy-washy...) I eventually decided to order just one thing—rice with vegetables—and just eat my sack lunch for dinner.

Now, I have only had one experience with Chinese food and it was not particularly one I would care to repeat (Dad and Joseph may chuckle at this point; the rest can shake their heads in clueless wonder). But, as Dad and Joseph may agree, that experience probably didn’t “count,” seeing as I was basically mixing together any leftovers of any dish I could find. This, despite being small and overcrowded, seemed to have plenty of food and plenty of variety. The group ordered roast duck and some kind of rolled up bready stuff (sigh...need to brush up my knowledge of cool Chinese dishes). Brad tried in vain to teach me how to use chopsticks before I resorted to my fork in desperation and hunger (when you’re starving, it’s just not a good idea to spend more than 30 seconds trying to get the food from the plate to your mouth). At the end of our meal, we got to pack up our leftovers in cute little take home boxes, and eat fortune cookies! Valerie’s fortune said something about always being successful in her career—lucky! Mine said this weird statement: “You are demonstrative with those you love.” This hardly qualifies as a fortune, but I’ll accept it as a compliment. If it’s true, that is. What do you think, people who think I might love you? Am I “demonstrative”?

I was worried about having to use my credit card to pay, after what Capt. Johnson had told us about being cheated by employees who swipe the card more than once, but Andy solved the problem by generously offering to pay the bill himself, personally (and have us repay him later). We then took a walk to the National Portrait Gallery. Since I had already seen a lot of it, I went with Valerie and Jamie to look at the American Art exhibits. Brad and Andy looked at the some of the Portrait Gallery, but we later found out that Brad fell asleep pretty quick and didn’t see much of anything :)

In contrast, I got through all three floors of the American Art museum, and took a lot of pictures, most of which turned out to be awful, horrible, low-quality. Sorry, guys. I guess I need a better camera, or should have taken one. At the same it seemed to make perfect sense that I would take the punier of our two cameras to D.C., but now, I’m wishing I had brought the better one. Rats. Oh, Dad...

But anyway, here’s one exhibit which I thought y’all might like to see. It’s pretty famous, and also pretty cool. It’s called Electronic Superhighway, and was made in 1995 by a South Korean artist, Nam June Paik. Basically, it’s a lot of television sets in different sizes, all playing movies or showing scenes from a particular state or something. Then there’s a lot of colorful neon lights and strings over the television sets that form the shape of the United States! It was a very attractive piece of art: The bright colors, the movement, the sound from the television screens—everything pulled you IN! I could have stayed and watched “The Wizard of Oz” (Kansas) or “Oklahoma!” (duh) or “South Beach Pacific” (Hawaii) or “Meet Me in St. Louis” (Missouri) for quite a while...but of course, there’s always more to see and more to do, so I had to move on... Still, I did at least get some good pictures!

Oh, and in case anyone is wondering, I looked closely at the screens for Georgia and Utah, but couldn’t figure out what either one was playing! Utah just showed a long stretch of what looked like the highway, and Georgia showed a lot of black people running a race... And the security guard told me something neat, which was that there was one little computer where Washington D.C. is, in which you can actually see yourself, thanks to a tricky camera hidden somewhere...I took a picture, but it’s too small to really see anything. Still, it was quite neat!

After seeing the museum for two hours, all of us were dead tired (well, except for Brad, possibly) and wanted to get home as fast as possible. So we took the Metro (for the THIRD time! Oh, the waste of moneeeeey) and were back at the Barlow Center around 6. I was hungry, but held off eating dinner while I did some laundry, tidied up our bathroom a bit, put things away, “computered” around (yeah, I made that new verb up on the spot), and watched the latter half of a movie with some other guys (“Say Anything”). I can’t say that I would recommend this one, either, but of course, I only saw the latter half. The acting seemed in general a little better than “The Four Feathers,” but I didn’t feel any real connection with the characters (which probably comes of coming in late) and felt the plot was a little 1) lame and 2) predictable. Girl is smart, girl is going to London, girl meets dumb boy, falls in love, girl changes boy into slightly less dumb boy, girl torn over whether to go to London or stay with dumb boy, boy ends up coming with girl. Happy ending. Oh, and there was something else about girl’s father being unhappy with relationship, subsequently turning out to be a crook himself, and then being stuck in prison while girl and boy go off to London. So, as you can see, they ALL lived happily ever after! But again, what right have I to comment? I only saw the second half.

Tomorrow, since I don’t anticipate doing much beyond going to church, going to the “Potluck” we’re having here, and the “Dessert Night” they’re having to welcome the new members, I’ll try to post some of my abstract pictures from random days and talk about them. I’ll be pretty busy every night this next week (Monday: FHE, Tuesday: Going to see Don Quixote at the Kennedy Center, Wednesday: Institute, Thursday: Homework), but will try to keep writing faithfully :)