Thursday, July 14, 2016

Washington D.C. - Space, Tea, and Mr. Jefferson (Day 4)

Sunday morning, I went back to the Air and Space Museum to see all the things that I didn't get to see the night before. Oh my gracious, it was packed. Packed, packed, packed. I was also pretty sick by that point (like sore throat, coughing, headache, it was awful) and had no voice so I really just wanted to take a nap. I didn't want to miss out on things more so I suffered through it and warned people away from me by coughing without covering my mouth.  To get away from the crowds, I bought a ticket without using words for a video in the planetarium. I wanted to see an IMAX but missed it by an hour because my watch was still on Louisiana time. Instead, I experienced about thirty minutes of Whoopi Goldberg explaining star formation to me before I had to leave because I was coughing like Edgar Allen Poe's child bride. 

After the Air and Space fiasco, I went back to the hotel and took a nap. I had to rest. BECAUSE... We had reservations for tea at the Willard. We were serenaded by a harpist as we ate and drank our way through scones, orange scented salmon mousse, and cheesecake parfaits. Oh my goodness. Matt had never had high tea before but I think he is a convert. He was the only male in the place but he didn't care one bit. 








After tea, we went back to the hotel to change into more comfortable clothes (we ate a lot!) and headed back out to the Jefferson Memorial which was a pretty far piece from the other monuments which weren't that far from us.  Just as we rushed to get to Lincoln by sunrise, we rushed to get to Jefferson before the sun went down.


This picture is a lie. We look close to it, we weren't. It took forever to get there. In fact, we are still trying to get there now, four months out.


We finally made it. I didn't expect to get to go to the Jefferson Memorial so I didn't do any research on it. I had no expectations.

My favorite part?

Facetiming with Thomas on the steps as the sun went down.
He was happy to see us, but mad that we weren't there. He cried. I cried. People stared.


Then we went to a burger place and then back to the hotel to pack up and sleep.

The next day, we flew home! But our little boy wasn't at home when we got there. Seriously.

He was at school. His nana had him for four days and needed a break, so she took him to school for the day. He got home about ten minutes after we got there. And baby boy couldn't wait to see his daddy. What you see here is Thomas kissing Matt through the car window. Window rolled up, of course.


Thomas didn't really care that I was home, but man, I was so glad to see him. Then I went to the doctor. 

Yay! D.C. is finished. Now to catch up on the four months that have elapsed since we went and I started writing this series.... 



Sunday, July 10, 2016

Washington D.C. - Shopping, Milk, and the Stars (Day 3)


Saturday morning in D.C. is far different from the workweek. Fewer people in the early morning and a larger number of homeless and beggars in the afternoon. First thing Saturday morning was breakfast with the business manager of Matt's new boss. We ate at Old Ebbit Grill. Apparently it used to be the oldest saloon in D.C. but I don't know about that - I ordered corned beef hash. I figured, when it Rome... It was okay. Meeting with the manager was also okay. It was very interesting to hear his thoughts on the business side of the future of Matt's chosen profession. Enough of that. 

After breakfast, we all went our separate ways - Matt back to the conference, the manager to the subway, and me to the mall. Well, mallS. I went to the National Mall first to see if I could get tickets to the Washington Monument for that day.  I did, by the way. Then, I made a stop into the Smithsonian Castle to see the sights and gardens. The gardens were slightly marred by all the boy scouts, but I guess that couldn't be helped. It was a Saturday, after all. 

The Smithsonian Castle. 
After seeing the castle and grounds, I went to the National Museum of the American Indian. It was very well done. I wish I had had time to explore more of it. It was early and all the other tourists were are the Air and Space museum so I was one of only about a dozen people in the place. After exploring for about an hour, I walked back to meet Matt in Chinatown for some real Chinese food as an early lunch. Look how neat! This is the entrance to Chinatown. All of the businesses have to have their names written in Chinese characters, as well as English. I wonder how many of them are correct. We didn't eat Chinese because the place we were headed to was closed, but we did stumble on a Vietnamese place that Matt talked me into. I'm not a huge fan, but he is a sucker for banh mi. The food was fine, but I didn't love it.   



Know what I do love? Ice cream. After I walked Matt back out to his conference, I went window shopping and stumbled across a Milk Bar. Lemme tell you about it. Milk Bar does interesting things with dairy. This is soft serve ice cream that tastes like the milk in the bottom of the bowl after you eat all the frosted flakes. I may have eaten ice cream while walking through 40 degree weather. It was so worth the frozen mouth that I got from it. 


 I also bought a compost cookie (chocolate, pretzels, potato chips, and other stuff that works perfectly with the salty-sweet scheme), birthday cake truffles, and a slice of crack pie (think butter. glorious butter).  I only ate the ice cream that day. I swear. 

After indulging in chewable milk and not buying anything while shopping, I met Matt to go to the top of the Washington monument. We waited a long time, took a super small elevator to the top, and then rode the elevator back down.  While at the top, we looked out the windows. Here, if you look out the window between us you can see the White House. 


After the monument, we got gussied up again and went to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. The museum was closed to the public, but open by invitation only from another one of those big pharm companies. Oh. My. Goodness. Where the dinosaur museum let me down, this one far exceeded my expectations. The party was catered by someone who knows how to cater. 

I won't do it justice by describing it, so I won't. Until I get to the end. We had free reign to go wherever we wanted. We got there early so there weren't many people, but even when there were a lot of people, it wasn't that many. It didn't take away from the experience at all. 




Dessert was spectacular. There were a bunch of little stations with different desserts. One station had sweet shooters of cheesecake and banana pudding. Another had artisan ice cream frozen with liquid nitrogen. Another had cake. Glorious cake.  I could have stayed there all night.  But we didn't.  We had to leave to get to a second dinner with the dermopath from the night before. This one was outside of DC and we were two of five guests. It took forever to get there, the food was weird, but the company was great. We also got in the wrong Uber at 11:00 at night, but that's a story that I'm just not emotionally prepared to tell.  

By the time we got safely back to the hotel, it was Sunday and the day before we got to go home. I mean, we had to leave. 

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Washington D.C. - Freedom, Death, and Wax (Day 2)


 Day Two in D.C. was when Matt and I split up. First, we went on a guided tour of the National Archives. No pictures though - none were allowed. Neither was mace. The girls in ahead of us in the security line obviously didn't read the rules on the website like I did a million times. The National Archives are where the original (we didn't see the map on the back...) Declaration of Independence is kept, along with the Bill of Rights and the Magna Carta. The room looks very similar to that used in the Nick Cage movie whose name escapes me right now, but was not nearly as bright. It was actually hard to see because of how dim it was. I had to pull my glasses back out and almost got body slammed by a guard. Those American History people are strict. National Treasure. That's the Nick Cage movie.

 We didn't have a lot of time at the Archives because Matt was there for a conference, so after seeing the Constitution - he went conferencing and I just went. My first stop was the National Gallery of Art. I took pictures of things that I thought Matt might like to see and things that I thought were pretty. Enjoy:





I wish I could tell you more about the pictures above, but I can't. It has simply been too long and I have other things on my mind. I really enjoyed seeing the Rodins and more than a few Degas. Though the Degas may have been a little pervy for me. I'm not sure that I would have let my fourteen-year old daughter pose for some of those pieces. I guess times were a little different in the 1800's, but that wouldn't fly now.

One thing that I thought was interesting is that artists can go to the museum and actually look at an original masterpiece while they were attempting to copy it. I wish I could paint well. I may spend some time with Bob Ross while we are in Tallahassee and I have no friends or social life.


 Oh, oh! There it is. A real Monet. I don't know why I like Monet's works so much, but I do. Claude makes me want to go to France to see what he saw. Well, Claude and croissants. 



 After I got my fill of Art, I hoofed it over to the Holocaust Museum. I thought about whether I wanted to actually go to the Museum for months. Until I walked through the doors, I still hadn't decided. I knew what happened - more than most. One of my papers in law school was about past and current genocides. I know more about the Holocaust than I want to know. But I went in. 

I didn't learn anything new from an overall perspective. I did experience the personal tragedy of about a hundred victims. The museum highlights (is that the best word for something so awful?) snippets of each person's story during the three story exhibit. There was a name and a sentence. A name and a picture. A name and an artifact. Every thing - palpable or incorporeal - had a name. A person's name. The museum made me experience the horrors far more than any book has ever done.

Only guard yourself and guard your soul carefully, lest you forget the things your eyes saw, and lest these things depart your heart all the days of your life. And you shall make them known to your children, and to your children's children. Deuteronomy 4:9. 

 I am glad that all those people are having their stories told in such a tangible way, but I am not going back. I remember and cannot forget. 

From the Hall of Remembrance. 

 After the Museums, I headed back to the hotel to freshen up. Matt and I facetimed with Thomas and then headed to Madame Tussauds Wax Museum for drinks with the stars. Big pharm companies host events during conferences like this. One of the companies invited Matt and his guest to a grinner at the wax museum. We went, confused people with statues, and left. While we were there, we ran into a few famous people.
I helped George cross the river. 

Matt sat really close to another George. 
We left the creepy wax place to go to dinner with one of the dermopathologist (sp?) who has been courting the LSU and Tulane residency programs. When a patient goes to the dermatologist and has something removed, most dermatologist send the something to a dermopathologist to look at and determine what it is. Big groups court residency programs so that when the derm residents go out to practice, they'll send the somethings to them so the dermopaths make money. It's perfectly ethical. When I get to be involved too, chances are, it will be delicious. 

Again, I don't remember the name of the restaurant, but the dermopath that Matt and I like a lot (there are two that court LSU and Tulane) invited the LSU and Tulane residents to a private dinner at a hopping restaurant. It was fun and delicious (real size portions, by the way), and free. We were wined and dined and had a blast. My introverted self was exhausted after being at TWO social events, so we went back to the hotel and called it a day.  

It's possible that I packed a lot into my days because I was trying not to think about the huge chunk of my heart at home. I wasn't teary, but was missing my boy some kind of bad. 

Saturday, July 2, 2016

Washington D.C. - An afternoon with the scholars and an evening with the snowflakes

Y'all. In case you couldn't tell already, our first full day in DC was crazy busy.  After our Capitol experience, we went to the Library of Congress through the tunnels.
From the second floor of the reading room at the LOC. 
There are two super neat things at the LOC - a Gutenburg Bible and an exhibition featuring Thomas Jefferson's library. If you don't know what the G. Bible is, google it. Lemme tell you about the library. I hate to be repetitive, but it was super neat. The LOC (and a lot of benefactors) is attempting to recreate Thomas Jefferson's personal library.


TJ's library

See those little book marks coming from the tops of the books? It is a coding system. A certain color was the exact book that Jefferson owned, another color was a copy of a book that Jefferson owned, and a third color was for pretend books that TJ was known to possess, but the book is so rare that the LOC hasn't been able to obtain a copy yet. The library that is being replicated are the books that Jefferson sold to Congress after the little incident that happened in 1814. You know, it involved few matches and soldiers wearing red....  That is how historians actually know which titles to find.  See? Super neat.

SCOTUS

When we left the LOC, we made a brief stop at the Supreme Court. To be honest, it just looks like a big courthouse on the inside. The only difference is that there are very few people when it is not in session and it is very clean. No prisoners awaiting sentencing here, no sir.

THEN... We went to the Museum of Natural History! Have you ever seen the animated dinosaur movie 'We're Back?" If so, think 'Museum of Natural History' in the Professor's voice.  Along the way, Matt complained about his feet hurting so much that I had to carry him. For a mile.

Just kidding.

About the carrying, not about the whining.

Anyway.

The Museum was a little disappointing, but Matt and I still enjoyed it. What I wanted to see the most were the dinos. The disappointing thing was how much of the dinosaurs weren't actually dinosaur bones but replicas. I guess I get it, but still. I wasn't prepared.






After catching a cab back to our hotel (I told you that he couldn't hang), we rested for a few minutes then trotted out to dinner.  I don't remember the name of it, but it was one of those super fancy, tiny portions, large prices places. Matt and I got several small plates to try but I don't seem to have any pictures. Probably, I took a picture, but the object was so small that it didn't come out so I just deleted it. The one thing that I did take a picture of was the complimentary sweet bites at the end of the meal. They look full-size in the picture, but don't be fooled. The macaroon was about the size of a quarter. The meal was delicious, but I left feeling hungry and poor. Not the best of feelings.


The best of feelings? Snow. Snow when you don't have to worry about driving or a kid catching a cold or the ickiness that is Louisiana snow. Snow flakes that can be seen lazily drifting down without any rain with them. Snow that falls on your hair and coat collar that is so delightful that you don't even consider brushing it away. Well, since the restaurant was about two miles from our hotel, we did have to brush it away or be collapsed under the weight of it, but you get the idea. It was dreamy.  


After we got back to the hotel and Matt soaked his feet in some Epsom salt and hot water, we crashed. It was like midnight and we'd been up since 4 a.m. to see sunrise with Lincoln. It was like a day in Rome, but with dinosaurs and snow. In short, exhausting yet incredible.