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ruFwah! I hath returned! Definitely glad to be home now, especially after sitting in a car for several hours and having to grapple with a headache. I'm not quite sure *why* I have a headache tho. I'm not sure if it was just the drive for some reason, or the fact that I spent the majority of the time working on my travelling crosstitch project. In any case tho, I'm back, and behind the cut, the tale of my adventure. ^^
Friday:
We got to the hotel around 5:30 or so, after getting stuck in traffic and fun goodness like that. It turns out we were actually staying in what I'm assuming to be an offshoot of the downtown DC area, a place called Crystal City(interesting name). Shortly after arriving I realized that this was the first time I had been to a truly large urban area, being a suburbanite my whole life, and was immediately enthralled. For instance, I couldn't get over the awesomeness that was the fact that our hotel was connected to an underground mall, complete with subway station that we used to get into DC and back. Unfortunately, we didn't get to do much with the mall beyond walking around it since apparently during the weekend and evenings the place buttons up right quick. Apparently the whole DC area is very business-oriented, and when it isn't business hours, the place is pretty slow.
We had dinner at a pub-like place on the second floor of one of the nearby buildings, which brought me to the second suburbanite-fascinated-at-all-things-urban thing, which is that apparently when space is limited, building up or down is certainly feasible. The fact that a full restaurant was on the second floor of a building and that a full mall was underground are examples. Again, I went 'ooooh' and 'aaaaaah'. We also got a look at the Metro station(apparently the subway in DC is called the Metro) so we'd know where we would be going the next day. The Metro was a subject of abject squealing on my part, considering the most I've seen for underground transportation was the trams at a nearby hospital. So I was pretty excited about the prospect of riding it the next day.
So most of the day was mostly spent wandering the Crystal City area and me going 'ooh' at things that I think most city-dwellers would consider mundane. Trying to get to sleep that night though was a serious ordeal for me. Eventually, around 1:00 in the morning I got fed up and got up and went into the bathroom and wrote in there about how I couldn't get to sleep. I won't bore you all with all the details, but I suspected that my lack of sleep was a combination of being in a strange place, making the BIG MISTAKE of having a caffeine drink that evening, and the fact that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't drown out my father's snoring, even with earplugs. But, I did eventually manage to get to sleep.
Saturday:
Those of you who saw the AMV Hell music video may remember the segment that involved Osaka lip synching to the Mac commercial with that Ellen Fleiss(sp?) student character. You may also remember that her eyes were altered to look really red around the edges. That's how my eyes looked when I woke up. But, I managed to get over that, and we hopped the Metro into DC to meet my cousin for the day. My impressions of the Metro can be summed up in one word: "Wooooooooooooooow. *_*" I'm sorry, but the idea of careening underground on a subway was downright nifty in my eyes. ^^;
One of the first things I found interesting when we got off the subway and ended up on the Mall was seeing things like the Capitol and the Washington Monument, even from a distance. Here were several buildings and objects that I had seen several times before, either on movies, on the news, or on currency, and here I was within visual distance of them. Which I thought was cool.
So, we spent the majority of the day doing the Smithsonian. The only ones we got to that day were the Natural History and the Air and Space Museums. I definitely found the Natural History Museum to be the much more interesting one of the two, though the Air and Space Museum had some merit too. Actually, I think both of them had their ups and downs. I really liked the Natural History Museum's items, like their dinosaur collection and their awesome geological collection(oooh...Hope Diamond. ^_^), but I would have loved some more plant-like things. The most they had were some plant fossils. And seeing some of the space artifacts at Air and Space were neat, but I would have liked to have gotten the chance to see the planetarium, and the majority of the millitary things didn't really interest me.
Afterwards we went and found dinner at a neat little sidewalk diner which had really awesome tuna salad on a salad. Then we went walking around DC. Since we were tourists and all, we decided to walk by the White House. The gates kept us at quite a distance, but hey, we saw it. I find it kinda funny though that we were near the abode of the president of the US, but I found the trees that were next to the fence to be much more fascinating. Apparently the White House property has the BIGGEST ginkgo tree I have ever seen. I had always thought that ginkgo trees took more of a coniferous shape when they got big, but apparently they take a more deciduous shape, like an oak tree. I believe this is one of the signs you're a plant geek. ^_^;
After that we went and saw the WWII memorial. Rather pretty, I thought. It was kinda sad seeing people set down roses and things at the site though. Unfortunately, shortly after leaving the memorial that salad seemed to disagree with me and set out for revenge. DC after 5PM on a weekend is apparently one of the worst places to suddenly need a restroom, since it seems just about nothing's open. Even the McDonald's we finally found closed up at 9PM. So that was kinda a bad way to end the day, and I admit I was kinda worried the rest of the trip that that incident would rear up and come after me again. But, things seemed to settle down after that.
Sunday:
Sunday was also pretty busy. We checked out the Smithsonian museum of American History. If it weren't for the Natural History museum, I'd say that that one was my favorite. Some of the things they had there I was kinda amazed they had. Like the hat Lincoln was wearing when he was assassinated, and the chairs Nixon and Kennedy sat in during their televised debate. I guess you kinda don't really get the feel that someone existed until you see some of the things they had during their lifetime. At least, that's how it was for me. And it was also awesome seeing things like Dorothy's ruby slippers(which needed dusting, I think), and Kermit the Frog. <3 <3
Afterwards, we went memorial hopping. We did a *serious* hike over to the Vietnam Memorial. I had always pictured it as being a single, straight wall, but apparently it's two walls set at an angle. Again, I found it rather sad to hear an old woman asking a guide there(who apparently had a book full of the locations for the names on the wall) for the location of a name. I wonder who she was looking for.
Then we did the Lincoln Memorial(pretty...I like the Greek temple effect), and did another insane hike to Arlington. Though by that point my feet were way too achy to do much walking, as were mom's, so we sat in the visitor's center whilst the guys wandered the graves, and looked at the map. Apparently there's a ton more at DC that we could've seen, like the National Aquarium(!), and a Botanical Garden(!!!). I guess those'll be saved for the next trip. In the meantime though, I was glad to finish up the day and come home today.
Wow, that was rather long. ^^; Now, I think I'll go back to relaxing, unwinding, and working on writing goodness. <3 <3 <3
Friday:
We got to the hotel around 5:30 or so, after getting stuck in traffic and fun goodness like that. It turns out we were actually staying in what I'm assuming to be an offshoot of the downtown DC area, a place called Crystal City(interesting name). Shortly after arriving I realized that this was the first time I had been to a truly large urban area, being a suburbanite my whole life, and was immediately enthralled. For instance, I couldn't get over the awesomeness that was the fact that our hotel was connected to an underground mall, complete with subway station that we used to get into DC and back. Unfortunately, we didn't get to do much with the mall beyond walking around it since apparently during the weekend and evenings the place buttons up right quick. Apparently the whole DC area is very business-oriented, and when it isn't business hours, the place is pretty slow.
We had dinner at a pub-like place on the second floor of one of the nearby buildings, which brought me to the second suburbanite-fascinated-at-all-things-urban thing, which is that apparently when space is limited, building up or down is certainly feasible. The fact that a full restaurant was on the second floor of a building and that a full mall was underground are examples. Again, I went 'ooooh' and 'aaaaaah'. We also got a look at the Metro station(apparently the subway in DC is called the Metro) so we'd know where we would be going the next day. The Metro was a subject of abject squealing on my part, considering the most I've seen for underground transportation was the trams at a nearby hospital. So I was pretty excited about the prospect of riding it the next day.
So most of the day was mostly spent wandering the Crystal City area and me going 'ooh' at things that I think most city-dwellers would consider mundane. Trying to get to sleep that night though was a serious ordeal for me. Eventually, around 1:00 in the morning I got fed up and got up and went into the bathroom and wrote in there about how I couldn't get to sleep. I won't bore you all with all the details, but I suspected that my lack of sleep was a combination of being in a strange place, making the BIG MISTAKE of having a caffeine drink that evening, and the fact that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't drown out my father's snoring, even with earplugs. But, I did eventually manage to get to sleep.
Saturday:
Those of you who saw the AMV Hell music video may remember the segment that involved Osaka lip synching to the Mac commercial with that Ellen Fleiss(sp?) student character. You may also remember that her eyes were altered to look really red around the edges. That's how my eyes looked when I woke up. But, I managed to get over that, and we hopped the Metro into DC to meet my cousin for the day. My impressions of the Metro can be summed up in one word: "Wooooooooooooooow. *_*" I'm sorry, but the idea of careening underground on a subway was downright nifty in my eyes. ^^;
One of the first things I found interesting when we got off the subway and ended up on the Mall was seeing things like the Capitol and the Washington Monument, even from a distance. Here were several buildings and objects that I had seen several times before, either on movies, on the news, or on currency, and here I was within visual distance of them. Which I thought was cool.
So, we spent the majority of the day doing the Smithsonian. The only ones we got to that day were the Natural History and the Air and Space Museums. I definitely found the Natural History Museum to be the much more interesting one of the two, though the Air and Space Museum had some merit too. Actually, I think both of them had their ups and downs. I really liked the Natural History Museum's items, like their dinosaur collection and their awesome geological collection(oooh...Hope Diamond. ^_^), but I would have loved some more plant-like things. The most they had were some plant fossils. And seeing some of the space artifacts at Air and Space were neat, but I would have liked to have gotten the chance to see the planetarium, and the majority of the millitary things didn't really interest me.
Afterwards we went and found dinner at a neat little sidewalk diner which had really awesome tuna salad on a salad. Then we went walking around DC. Since we were tourists and all, we decided to walk by the White House. The gates kept us at quite a distance, but hey, we saw it. I find it kinda funny though that we were near the abode of the president of the US, but I found the trees that were next to the fence to be much more fascinating. Apparently the White House property has the BIGGEST ginkgo tree I have ever seen. I had always thought that ginkgo trees took more of a coniferous shape when they got big, but apparently they take a more deciduous shape, like an oak tree. I believe this is one of the signs you're a plant geek. ^_^;
After that we went and saw the WWII memorial. Rather pretty, I thought. It was kinda sad seeing people set down roses and things at the site though. Unfortunately, shortly after leaving the memorial that salad seemed to disagree with me and set out for revenge. DC after 5PM on a weekend is apparently one of the worst places to suddenly need a restroom, since it seems just about nothing's open. Even the McDonald's we finally found closed up at 9PM. So that was kinda a bad way to end the day, and I admit I was kinda worried the rest of the trip that that incident would rear up and come after me again. But, things seemed to settle down after that.
Sunday:
Sunday was also pretty busy. We checked out the Smithsonian museum of American History. If it weren't for the Natural History museum, I'd say that that one was my favorite. Some of the things they had there I was kinda amazed they had. Like the hat Lincoln was wearing when he was assassinated, and the chairs Nixon and Kennedy sat in during their televised debate. I guess you kinda don't really get the feel that someone existed until you see some of the things they had during their lifetime. At least, that's how it was for me. And it was also awesome seeing things like Dorothy's ruby slippers(which needed dusting, I think), and Kermit the Frog. <3 <3
Afterwards, we went memorial hopping. We did a *serious* hike over to the Vietnam Memorial. I had always pictured it as being a single, straight wall, but apparently it's two walls set at an angle. Again, I found it rather sad to hear an old woman asking a guide there(who apparently had a book full of the locations for the names on the wall) for the location of a name. I wonder who she was looking for.
Then we did the Lincoln Memorial(pretty...I like the Greek temple effect), and did another insane hike to Arlington. Though by that point my feet were way too achy to do much walking, as were mom's, so we sat in the visitor's center whilst the guys wandered the graves, and looked at the map. Apparently there's a ton more at DC that we could've seen, like the National Aquarium(!), and a Botanical Garden(!!!). I guess those'll be saved for the next trip. In the meantime though, I was glad to finish up the day and come home today.
Wow, that was rather long. ^^; Now, I think I'll go back to relaxing, unwinding, and working on writing goodness. <3 <3 <3