Holly visits DC and doesn't encounter rabid bat

My dear sister Holly finally made a trip up to DC to visit us.  Of all my family members, I thought Holly would surely be the first to get here since she's all about traveling...but in fact, she was last.  We still had a good time though!   We went to my favorites, eastern market and of course, Mt Vernon (yes, I did get in free with my season pass--we  took the metro then bus to get there which was another first for me :)  We also visited one museum. 

Holly @ American Indian Museum

When Ed & I arrived in DC, I had big plans to see every museum and well-known site this town has to offer. Then, I was unexpectedly able to attend Danish classes with Ed, and my plans went out the window. After I left class, I figured I would be able to pick up where I left off...except that the blazing heat and hoards of 8th graders have definitely slowed me down.  When E&I went to the Natural History Museum in February, we were the only ones in the room with the dinosaur bones...I am quite certain that if I went today, I would be alone with me and 200 of my closest middle school buddies--no thank you :) 

But back to my museum quest...  Holly and I went to the National Museum of the American Indian on Friday.  The building is amazing, both inside and out.  The café supposedly serves really good food, but we had just had lunch so did not try it. Also they have an impressive gift shop (more on that in a moment)

 I found the museum to be interesting, but the set-up was confusing.  The museum contains info and artifacts from both north and south american indians. Rather than being organized by location and giving all the information (beliefs, culture, where they are now etc) in one place about that specific tribe (seems logical to me),  each 'gallery' centered around one aspect of life--and then had all the different tribes specifics in 'winding' rooms (lots of curved walls dividing a large room into many smaller rooms).  Every time I came into a new little 'room' in any given section, I would have to find the map to see who I was reading about and where they came from..and then try to remember what I had learned about them in a different area of the museum.  Clearly, I was not meant to write reviews about places because the last 5 sentences are a bit confusing, but if you find yourself in DC, I would definitely recommend at least seeing the outside of the building if you do not have time to go in to see the whole thing. It is pretty amazing.  

Water feature that faces the mall--visit here if you can!

Bear from gift shop--I wanted to buy this bear for Ed until i found his price tag.
$115!! Can you believe that?
There were egg ornaments done in the exact same style for $15.  I asked if the price was correct..and it was.
Wow.  Special Bear.

 And here is the rest of our weekend in pictures...

Eastern Market:

Holly's picture of eastern market. fun huh?

Me and my flowers from Holly--they are so awesome!
Makes me happy to see them on my coffee table.
They are Celosia or cockscomb..Never seen them before, but when walking away from the stand I heard a man yelling about how he should have bought them when he first got there b/c he thought the vendor had sold out.
 Guess they are popular :) 

Holly & her gelato

If your metro car looks like this, on a summer saturday afternoon in downtown DC...
something is not right.
The A/C was broken so this car had become a sauna on wheels.  We sat in it for 11 stops &
it was miserable, but I left feeling slightly detoxed :)

yes, more georgetown cupcakes. ( my favorite picture pose)

Mt. Vernon:

Me with the Washingtons

Meeting 'Emo horse'....

...and "Red Bull"  (we gave them these names)

Holly's proclamation to the horse "seeing you made our trip worth it!"
haha..dork.

Holly with her camera :)  

And that was it!  Fun Times Hollis!

P.S.  We avoided Arlington National Cemetery all together--Holly has bad luck there...She may have her rabies vaccine now but I don't!

The 10K walking tour of DC

My cousin Amy and my childhood, actually teen-hood (that's my made-up word of the day) friend Natalie were here this past weekend.  We had a great time together!  We are all living in different cities and are in different places in our lives now but when we are together, it's like things have never changed from our younger days.  There's no drama and there are always lots of pictures taken. Neither Amy nor Natalie had been to DC before so I thought the most important thing for them to see would be the big, famous places first.  They can visit museums next time they are here! All of the pictures in this post are from 1 day of serious walking.  DC has a decent metro system that is really clean and generally on time, but when it comes to doing things around the downtown area, it's almost better to walk, especially on the weekends and holidays in the summer.  There  are many more people trying to get on and off fewer trains throughout the day. So, with all that said, we started our day at Eastern Market and walked from there...more than 6 miles.  Here was our day:

Beautiful flowers at the indoor part of eastern market

Escaping the heat in a firetrap bookstore just off eastern market.   Like my cow book?  That's actually how I felt the following day after the cupcake pigout, i mean cowout.  

Supreme Court...

And capitol.  Natalie said it is much more beautiful in person than in pictures. I agree.

We decided to give the self-photography a try at the Washington Monument.  Aren't my 'tar-bans' (target ray-bans :) great?  Ed hates them.

Freedom wall at the WW2 memorial..each star represents 100 American service personnel who were killed during WW2.

Amy and Natalie taking a break at the Korean War Memorial.

One of our few successful pictures taken by strangers. Abe's head was not cut off and the guy taking the picture took it in under 30 seconds.  Bravo picture taker.

I have always wanted to visit this statue of Einstein near the National Academy of Sciences. Since we were on foot, and nearby, I thought that we should stop by. It is so big and it's neat because it is a sculpture that you can actually touch in DC so people were crawling all over it when we first arrived. 

DAR headquarters.  Heather and I were here before but I never had a chance to have my picture here.  

 Amy and Natalie at the White House. We had another stranger attempt to take a picture of the 3 of us here....she tried so hard..but could never get a good shot, even after taking 5 pictures.  

Ahh, at last. We reached the metro station to head home after a long, long day of walking!