Embracing my American Roots

After a week trip one has come to an end and I load up on a plane again. First stop, 4 hours in SLC where I got to meet my mom and sisters for lunch at Blue Lemon. Second stop Atlanta Georgia, where my 30 minute layover turned into a 4 hour layover...thank you thunderstorms. I got listed onto an hour earlier flight out of Atlanta headed to Washington DC. Thanks to the loss of 3 hours and the extended layovers, I arrived to DC at 1:30am. (Did I mention I left LA at 7am?). I thought this was bad until I learned I had to wait until my bag arrived with the later flight at 2:36am. Thank you to my amazing boyfriend (who had to wake up for work at 7:30am the next morning) I had company at the airport while I waited over an hour. Driving down the cute little streets I see a large tree with a darling swing on it. I yell out oh my look at that swing. He follows with, that is my house. We made it back to his house at about 3 am and my next trip was about to begin!

Friday
After sleeping in until noon, slowly getting ready, I headed off on my walk to the metro. I fell in love with Virginia along the way. The beautiful colonial houses, brick and painted doors, shutters and picket fences. The green trees everywhere. It is a beautiful place! I made it on and off the metro (with thanks to New Zealand and Australia for teaching me the ins and outs of public transport). I quickly found the White House and the Treasury building next door. I wandered the streets for the next few hours while waiting for Skyler to get off work! After we got to see the new Superman. If you know me at all then you know I cannot go to the movie theater without sneaking in some sort of food whether it is dessert, candy, a meal, etc. I ran into a grocery store to buy Half Baked Ben and Jerry's for the movie, but forgot to stop by the deli to grab a plastic spoon figuring the movie theater would have them. Well long story short they had no spoons so I spent the movie sipping and licking ice cream from a carton.
Lesson learned: Always be prepared when sneaking food into a movie.

Swing in the tree at Skyler's house. I could too much time on here!

Out front of the White House

US Treasury: Skyler's work

Saturday

After eating breakfast in the backyard hammock we headed off to see the city. First stop National Archives! It was so neat to see the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. The Declaration has just about worn off, not much of it can be read. The Constitution was in a lot better quality. 

Interesting Fact: The security informed me they have a new way of securing the documents that cannot be made known to the public. They used to drop them 20 feet underground into a vault and seal at 5:30pm, but that was not made known until they had a new way to secure them.

After standing in the security line with the hot sun beating down,
I quickly gave in to the very expensive ice cream man! 

Everyone had their feet in the fountain for a quick cool down. I thought I'd join.

Next stop Washington Monument! It was all covered in scaffolding unfortunately!

While walking passed the Reflections pool I wanted to stop and make a wish in the fountain. It took me a minute to realize I recognized the building on the back of this coin. Neat!
Note to Self: If traveling with Skyler you cannot stop when he is on a mission. He will leave you and not look back.
This happened frequently on our excursions. Look closely you can spot him in white.

Visiting Abe himself. This is by far my favorite Memorial so far!

Monday

I got to meet the another intern from teaching with me at Lindon last year, Ashley!

We spent the morning at the Holocaust Memorial.
Very depressing museum, but also reminded me how much more I could know about history.

Favorite part of a Museum: Pretending to be the things within the Museum!

1. Giraffe drinking from a waterhole

2. T-Rex
Skyler is a good sport, I had to force this one out of him

Skyler walked a over a mile in the pouring rain to come meet at this museum. As much fun as public transport is, I wonder what it would be like to have a car! (Did I mention he had no umbrella or hood?)

We waited out the rain and took a bike taxi to Chinatown for dinner!

Tuesday

We headed down to Alexandria to walk the cobble streets. After burgers at the waterfront we headed to gelato so Skyler could mark it off his bucket list.

Wednesday

Suitcase all packed up and in hand, I took a bus to the metro, switched to another line metro, then walked to find the bus deck. I loaded my double decker bus for the drive to Raleigh to begin trip 3! I will be back to celebrate July 4th Washington DC!