Day 15: Washington, DC

Sorry for the late update! Yesterday and this morning were so jam- packed that I didn't find anytime to update this thing in an appropriate fashion.

My morning started off rather early (for me at least) as I left pat's apt with him as he left for work. Instead of going to loyola's campus ministry department for the day (perish the thought), pat dropped me off at Baltimore's Penn station so that I could catch the train to DC.

How cool is this - Amtrak runs a MARC train (still don't know what the acronym stands for) that runs between DC and Baltimore many times a day for 7 bucks each way. What a deal! And the train gets you right to Union Station in washington, basically in the heart of everything.

Anyways, got down to union station at around 10am and didn't have anything planned until 1pm, so I wandered around, took the sights in, enjoyed the non-humid weather, and tried to not look like a complete tourist (I find that if you look exasperated and don't take any pictures you can kind of fit in).

I met up with my friend Michelle for lunch. Michelle and I were RAs and SRAs together at UCDavis (you will notice a recurring theme with most of my friends I think...). Michelle now works as a Department Coordinator at National Geographic, which everyone always oohs and
aahs over when they hear it. Not me though! Kidding. Anyway we had fun catching up and cracking jokes. And we went to Potbelly and got sandwiches, and even though it was super crowded and they made my sandwich late it was totally delicious and worth it.

After lunch, I went by the National Archives and saw their new exhibit on Civil War documents which was cool. I then tried to head into the Smithsonian (Natural History Museum) but I could barely stand the amount of 10 year olds there. Keep your students in the classroom,
teachers! No real learning takes place in the real world.

After that, I was kind of sick of crowds and just wanted to hang out, so I rambled down to the mall and just hung out on a bench and read a book. After about an hour, I noticed that there was a camera and a camera purse sitting on the bench next to me. I opened it up and called the number inside. The guy who the camera belonged to was appreciative that someone found it and wanted to get it tomorrow from me, but since I was leaving the city tomorrow (aka today) that wouldn't work. So I had some free time (and a day Metro pass), I took the Metro out to Pentagon City, Virginia and gave this guy his camera back. It was actually fun to do, and I only got a little bit nauseous on the metro train back (I don't like sitting facing backwards from
the direction I am moving in!).

Then I met a family friend, Alexandra, for happy hour. Alexandra has grown up acrossthe street from my parent's summer cabin almost all my life, so we go way back (and our mothers are still hoping we get married). Alexandra is a rising senior at Boston University, and she is doing an internship in DC for the summer doing some boring government work (her words). It was good to see her even it was only for about an hour, especially since I probably won't see her this
summer again.

After that, I had to put my Metro skills to the test and race across town to Capital Hill and meet Diana (henceforth called Bowen), Mariam (aka Spoon), and Michelle for dinner. Let's see, how do we all know each other- we were all RAs together at Davis at one point or another and hung out in the same group of friends for junior and senior years of college. Does that adequately describe our friendships? Probably not. They are all very hysterical in their own ways.

The above picture is an example. I had a painting in my apt senior year of college of three ladies in those positions. They thought it was hysterical, and for my birthday that year I got a life-size picture of them impersonating the pose (I still have both the original and new copy - I just don't know how they will go over at Gonzaga). Since 2006, many different versions of the picture have been created, and they continue to be hysterical. (Side note: I should probably put all of the versions together at some point if I could find them all - would be hilarious).

(P.S. You already know what Michelle and Diana do- Spoon is a teacher at a charter school in DC.)

We ended up at Matchbox for dinner which was a good restaurant. Dad, this placed served watermelon wheat beer from 21st amendment in SF! Small world. We stayed there until almost 10pm catching up, reliving old jokes, and probably making new ones too.

After dinner, we went back to Bowen and Spoon's apt where I crashed for the night ("crashed" seems like a very college word but I can't think of what else to say). I think after this trip I should create a website comparing and rating air mattresses- I am getting quite the tour of all different types on my summer vacation!

That's it from Tuesday- all I have to say is that I can't wait to update about today already!

Joey