Saturday, November 20, 2010. It's twas a sunny day with the high being in the 60s and the low in the 40s. Fahrenheit.
It would take us about three hours to get to D.C. from Philly so I suggested we left at 6am to arrive in the District of Columbia around 9ish. However, it turned out that I was the only one on that train. I get downstairs at around 5:50am, ready to go. I'm running a little late and am hoping that Katy isn't having to wait on me. However, when I came downstairs there was no movement. So I texted Katy and told her that I was ready when she was. So I'm sitting on the couch watching tv when I hear Katy's door open. She walks down the hall and whispers "Lauren?". I respond with, "Um, yes?". I mean, who else would it be but I'm running with it... She therefore giggles, pauses and says "I'll be ready soon". I then hear the bathroom door close and the shower starting. I assume Katy slept in a bit too late... That was ok with me. We both did not get much sleep the night before because of work. Katy gets ready in a speedy 20 minutes and is downstairs apologizing. It's no big deal as we head out the door to make a pit stop at Wawa (coffee and breakfast hoagies - BOMB) and then on our way to Heather's house to pick her up. We arrive at Heather's while I wait in the car. Katy jumps out to get Heather because she hasn't responded to her text messages... Katy knocks on the door and waits. And waits. And waits. Finally, Heather opens the door in a sleep coma panic. She goes and grabs a tiny bag and starts to walk out the door in her pajamas. She finally realizes what she is doing and says, "I'm going to need a few minutes". Long story short, planned to leave Philly at 6am. Did not leave until after 7am. Oh well, we are not on any time restraint!!! However, I text Keri that we are on our way with no response as well...
We finally arrive in D.C. and to (thanks to Katy's bro-in-law) the W Hotel downtown. It is located off 15th street NW, within less than 1 block of the White House. Our room overlooks the United States Department of Treasury building. The architecture of Washington D.C. is overwhelming. I'm in heaven.
I text Keri that we are at the hotel. She calls me and says that she is running a bit late and that she hasn't left yet. Oh well, guess she's gonna miss out on some sites! We were able to check into our hotel room which was really nice. The room was gorgeous and in modern style. I was able to figure out how to turn the sink on/off at this W unlike the W New York City.
We revamped ourselves and headed out to our Monuments/Memorials tour. Enjoy the fun facts. They are all legitimate. Found them on wikipedia.
Washington Monument
*Marble, granite & sandstone
*World's tallest stone structure & the world's tallest obelisk (555 feet 5 1/8 inches)
*Robert Mills designer
*began 1848, finished 1884
Fun Fact: A difference in shading of the marble, visible approximately 150 feet up, shows where the construction was halted for a number of years.
*World's tallest stone structure & the world's tallest obelisk (555 feet 5 1/8 inches)
*Robert Mills designer
*began 1848, finished 1884
Fun Fact: A difference in shading of the marble, visible approximately 150 feet up, shows where the construction was halted for a number of years.
National World War II Memorial
*Granite pillars, bronze eagles/wreaths
*consists of 58 pillars and a pair of arches surrounding a plaza & fountain
*Plaza is 337 feet, 10 inches long and 240 feet, 2 inches wide. Contains a pool that is 246 feet, 9 inches by 147 feet, 8 inches.
*initial design by Friedrich St. Florian, Raymond Kaskey created the bronze eagles/wreaths
*started September 2001 and opened to the public in April 2004
Fun Fact: Each pillar is inscribed with the name of one of the 48 U.S. states of 1945 as well as the District of Columbia, the Alaska Territory and Territory of Hawaii, the Commonwealth of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam American Samoa and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
View of the Lincoln Memorial from the WWII Memorial across the Reflecting Pool
Lincoln Memorial
*Marble
*The structure measure 189 feet, 7 inches by 118 feet, 5 inches and it 99 feet tall. It is surrounded by a peristyle of 36 fluted Doric columns, one for each of the 26 states in the Union at the time of Lincoln's death, and two columns in-antis at the entrance behind the colonnade.
*architect Henry Bacon, sculptor Daniel Chester French, painter Jules Guerin
*started March 1914, dedicated May 1922
Fun Fact: The north and sound side chambers contain carved inscriptions of Lincoln's second inaugural address and his Gettysburg Address.
This fellow on the bottom right (in the jeans and blue/green jacket) found himself walking into a trap. Katy decides to say loudly: "What monument is this again?"
To which I replied: "I think it's Washington."
This guy hears us, gets angry and yells, "IT'S LINCOLN."
We saw him later with his significant other. We figured he was babbling on and on about the youth of America being in trouble and how their education was meaningless. I am sure there was also something said about his tax dollars going to waste. Oh, how I am overjoyed at making strangers frustrated.
This became the running joke of the trip. As we would pass strangers, we would loudly say something incredibly wrong just to see if anyone would correct us. Mostly people just looked at us strangely but sometimes we would get responses. Most of them angry responses. Classic.
This picture was in ode to the Honest Abe Geico ad. I made Katy take a picture of me re-creating Mary Todd Lincoln's "Does this dress make me look fat?" scene. I thought it was funny.
Others? Not so much.
This is our one and only normal picture from the trip. Heather could not seem to ever get her face pleasant for the whole trip...
I also wanted to open a couple of champagne bottles, an ode to Wedding Crashers, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Security guards not a fan of this. They were also not a fan of me recreating Jenny jumping out of the Reflecting Pool from Forrest Gump.
Security Guards, limiting human interaction for years.
Korean War Veterans Memorial
*Granite; steel
*Walls: 164 feet long, 8 inches thick; more than 2,500 photographic, archival images representing the land, sea and air troops who supported those who fought in the war are sandblasted onto the wall. Within the walled triangle are 19 stainless steel statues between 7 feet, 3 inches and 7 feet, 6 inches tall; each weighs nearly 1,000 pounds. To the north of the statues and path is the United Nations Wall. The circle contains the Pool of Remembrance, a shallow pool 30 feet in diameter lined with black granite and surrounded by a grove of trees with benches.
*designed by Cooper-Lecky Architects; statues designed by Frank Gaylord
*started June 1992, dedicated July 1995
Fun Fact: The statues represent a squad on patrol, drawn from each branch of the armed forces; 14 of the figures are U.S. Army, 3 are Marines, 1 Navy Corpsman and 1 is an Air Force Forward Air Observer.
Vietnam Veterans Memorial
*Gabbro, bronze
*Walls: at the highest tip it is 10 feet, 1 inch high and they taper to a height of 8 inches at their extremities.
*Wall designed by Maya Lin, bronze statue by Frederick Hart, Vietnam's Women's Memorial designed by Gienna Goodacre
*Wall completed in 1982; The Three Soldier's statue was dedicated in 1984; Women's Memorial was dedicated November 1993
Fun Fact: Inscribed on the walls are the names of servicemen who were either confirmed to be KIA or remained classified as MIA when the walls were constructed in 1982.
We stopped for a little lunch and they served beer. So naturally Katy & I indulged. I went to sit down by these trash cans and all of the sudden, this squirrel popped out. So I named him Mark.
Mark was a sassy little trinket who was chilling in this trash can - eating, scraping, trash diving, and learning our most treasured secrets.
Then it was off to the Jefferson Memorial. It was a bit of a walk from the rest of the monuments/memorials but well worth it. The walk itself was gorgeous - fall leaves and parks along the Potomac River.
Jefferson Memorial
*Marble
*composed of circular marble steps, a portico, a circular colonnade of Ionic order columns and a shallow dome. The interior has a 19 foot tall, 10,000 pound bronze statue of Jefferson showing him looking out toward the White House. The interior walls are engraved with passages from Jefferson's writings.
*designed by John Russell Pope; main sculptor Rudulph Evans; Adolph A. Weinman sculpted the pediment relief above the entrance
*construction began in December 1938 and dedicated in April 1943; bronze statue added 1947
Fun Fact: The most prominent engraving in the memorial are the words inscribed in a frieze below the dome: "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." It is taken from a September 23, 1800 letter by Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush wherein he defends the constitutional refusal to recognize a state religion.
This is Heather re-enacting the 'Slippery When Wet' sign. This was right before we headed into the memorial where we decided to take some glamour shots. Normal.
We decided to head back to the hotel because Keri had arrived. However, by this point we were really, really far away from the hotel. So we decided to taxi it. We got back to our hotel room where we found Keri drinking a red bull. It's go time. After refreshing ourselves, we decided to go up to the top floor of the hotel which housed a bar named the 'Point of View' Bar.
The bar has this view of the White House (thus, it's name):
We could see the tiny snipper man making his rounds atop the White House. However, no sightings of Obama. I'll preface this next statement with this: I love Keri to death and have known her for many years. Her being a some-what obnoxious, gun-toting Republican, it made me nervous for her being so close to our Democratic President... She would never do anything. Or would she?
This nutcracker was in front of a hotel on our way to the White House. Keri decided it was a good photographic opportunity, so naturally we jumped at the chance. Katy took a couple of pictures of us and when I went to grab my camera from her, she had this very awkward face. I asked her what was going on and she told me to check out my pics. It turns out she was referring to this girl behind Keri who was inside:
Not only was she being a huge creep, the picture does not encompass everything she was doing while plastering herself to the glass. She was also sticking her tongue in/out like a snake.
What a bizarre little girl.
We traveled around the White House, viewing the grounds. It was another opportune moment for our running joke. Katy asked us if that was the Taft Monument and some girl yelled: "IT'S THE WHITE HOUSE." Oh how we revel in people's frustrations...
After our White House trip, we headed to Tyson's Corner where we were going to see Harry Potter at the IMAX. We found an On the Border which had us Texans sucked into its tractor beam. While we waited for our food, we decided to have an Ugly-off. Now let me explain. It is when you take a picture of someone while they are trying to make the ugliest face they can possible muster. The Ugly-off ended in a tie which I was not happy about. I take pride in being the Ugliest person on the planet. Here are a couple shots of some amateurs:
Katy: Katy likes to use props when she is Ugly. Here she is using her lime for some teeth with her arms in some 'raising the roof' motion. She also has some wide eyes. Silly, silly girl.
Keri: This is the best Keri could come up with. She used here top teeth as an anchor. She then stuck a tiny bit of her tongue our and also chose wide eyes to finish. Amateur.
Now to the good stuff: Heather was my only competition. Katy and Keri could not decide on a winner so I'll let you form your own opinions. Round 1:
Round 2:
So what to you think? Heather? Or me? Ugly-off 2010.
So after dinner and drinks, we headed to Tyson's Corner which was a really nice mall in the Washington D.C. area. We got our tickets and were there pretty early for our 10:50 showing. We decided to get some more drinks before we waited in line. We went to TGI Fridays where we sat at the bar. Heather scoped out the movie theater and decided when we should start waiting in line. A very nice older black man sat by me at the bar. The first thing he told me was that I should not be drinking such a big beer because I was too skinny to handle it. Suffice to say, I fell in love with him at an early stage. We talked about why we were in Washington D.C. and college football. When we left, he told me that he enjoyed my loud 'ha, ha' laugh. I told him that I called it my 'jackass laugh' and that it only comes out unless something is really funny. If you are gonna laugh, better make it a loud, obnoxious one. Those always feel better.
Heather & Katy got in line while Keri and I went back downstairs in search for a deck of cards to pass our time. We found a Barnes & Noble but there only deck of cards was a poker set that was $25. I settled on a cheaper Uno. We started playing Uno and chatting about various things. I kept Keri & Katy up to date on the A&M vs. Nebraska score. They took this into singing the Aggie War Hymn while we waited in line. They sang it very loudly while they motioned their arms vigorously in a somewhat running matter:
I was really embarrassed. But someone so nicely pointed out why I was so embarrassed? Since I was waiting in line to see Harry Potter. Touche, touche.
We asked some nice guy in front of us to take a group picture of us. However, someone (Heather) cannot take a normal picture. So we eventually just kicked her out of the picture and we got it captured. Classic.
The line started to move and it was Harry Potter 2010 time! All three girls entered ahead of me and all of the sudden I hear Heather say, "Oh my, they're running." I realize that Katy and Keri are gone. And Heather's starts to run after them. I put my trust in them and followed, walking. See, I'm not THAT gay.
I made my way into the theater and looked into the vast group of people. I finally found them. Middle row, center seats. Best seats in the house. I knew I could trust them. I make my way to my seat and I comment on the running. Keri states that she saw Katy knocking over women and children to get into the theater. I knew I loved her for a reason.
After some terrible and disappointing previews, it was finally Harry Potter time. The movie was excellent but left you hanging for more (which was why it was called Part 1). This was the first Harry Potter movie I have seen where I have read the book BEFORE the movie. So I had my moments where I wished they had done things differently or concentrated on certain parts of the book more. However, I was completely satisfied with the movie itself and the performances. I think all three leads are amazing but something about Emma Watson's performance is heart wrenching. She is a brilliant, selfless and loving Hermoine Granger. So props to her and the gang.
After the movie, we made it safely back to the hotel. It took Keri less than 3 minutes before she was asleep. Now for a good nights sleep so Katy and I could get up early for some more sight seeing! Stay tuned for Washington D.C., Part 2!!
"Sometimes it would stop raining long enough for the stars to come out... and then it was nice. It was like just before the sun goes to bed down on the bayou. There was always a million sparkles on the water... like that mountain lake. It was so clear, Jenny, it looked like there were two skies one on top of the other. And then in the desert, when the sun comes up, I couldn't tell where heaven stopped and the earth began. It's so beautiful."
-Forrest Gump played by Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump
No comments:
Post a Comment