Weekend Part I: DC
April 8th, 2007
I went with Gareth on Saturday morning on a day trip to the capitol. Left my place a bit after 6am and drove up to the Orange line for the park and ride into the city. The parking lot was fairly empty and traffic was pretty nice. We rode the train into the city right to the mall.
We started off heading towards the Washington Monument on the way to the Jefferson Memorial across the Tidal Basin. It was a clear day with few people out at 8:30am. The cherry blossoms were in full bloom and you could just get a hint of the fragrance on the morning breeze. Seems very poetic thinking back on it. We walked around the tidal basin for a bit and then headed back towards the mall. Gareth wanted to look at a couple things and I was starting to get a bit shaky without any breakfast. On the way we walked next to the Holocaust Museum and stopped to look at it. We were in line shortly to get free tickets (museum was just opening) and soon inside; where I promptly lost my ticket so we couldn’t see the private exhibits. Sorry Gareth.
It was around 12 when we found a place where we could get some burgers and sit outside. Did I mention that it was just gorgeous outside?
After lunch we visited the National Art Gallery and walked up to the Capital building. It seemed very surreal that we were standing close to all those monuments and memorials that we often see only on our money or a CNN graphic in the evening. Here we were just walking around these things in the US capital with families eating lunch, flying kites or walking their dogs. It was a strange feeling to put something that exists ethereally in your world as a tangible thing 100 feet in front of you. An odd feeling to know that the center of the free 
world had their public bathrooms closed because of a celebration of flowery trees and wanted you to use port-a-potties instead.
At around 4pm we headed home (along with a large number of people who had been there for the festivities) and made it back to Charlottesville by 7ish. We stopped a couple times on the way home for some food and gas and overall it was a very good trip. Lots of walking and yet we saw very very little of the buildings there. I’m already ready for another trip.
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