I'm back in Savannah now. Spring break is over and it's time to be all scholarly again. Ugh.
Let me tell you about our trip. We had a blast! We got off to a slow start (our original plans were to leave at 10 am on Friday, March 13, but then we changed to 10 on Saturday, but we didn't actually get on the road until 11:30 or so. As usual I was asleep five minutes into the drive so it didn't matter to me!), but after a 10 hour drive and a good night's rest, we made the most of our seven days.
My top ten favorite things we did this week are:
(In order of least to most favorite)
10. Appreciating art. I'll admit that art museums are, for the most part, boring. How many Madonna and Christ Child paintings can one look at before they all start to look the same? (The answer is three if you were wondering). However, there are some works that sing above the chorus. Jan van Eyck's is one of those artists whose works have always left me speechless. Considered the father of oil painting, van Eyck could do things with his paintbrush that today's so called artists could never even imagine. Annunciation (seen below), painted in the 1430s, is a work you must see in person to properly appreciate. It's about 1' w x 2' high to give you an idea of the scale. The amount of realistic detail is absolutely incredible.
9. Goofing Off in Museums...As mentioned before, museums can be boring, so you have to make your own fun. We went to a lot of museums, so we did a lot of making fun this week.
8. Persian Sweets...I must learn how to make sweet treats from the Persian countries. But first, I have to find the names of them. Every time I'd ask the name of what I was taste testing I would get a shoulder shrug and the same answer: sweets.
7. The Washington Experience...We had the real Washington treatment while at the Capitol. First we had to wait to get into the building because it had just been evacuated due to a threat when it was time for our tour. We finally got in through the basement tunnel connecting the congressman's office building to the capitol, did our tour quickly, learned that Washington was supposed to be buried in the capitol but he didn't want to be, then it was time to go. We lingered outside for a few minutes to take pictures and the next thing we knew one of the people in our group was being approached by a Capitol Hill police officer. You know, one of the men dressed in swat team black. Then another officer came over. Then another. Then two plain clothes officers joined in. Apparently you're not supposed to take pictures of the black SUV's surrounding the capitol building. The officers detained our group member for an hour, made a copy of the camera's memory card, erased the offending pictures, asked a lot of questions, took a complete biographical history of the person and finally allowed us to be on our way. In our defense, the black SUV's are everywhere. It's impossible to not get one in a picture. (There's three of them in the image below.)
6. Celebrating Persian New Year at my friends' aunt and uncle's home. My classmate Ghazal and her sister, Goli, are from Tehran, Iran and celebrate their New Year based on the lunar calendar. The date and time changes every year (it officially became the new year on Friday, March 20 at 7:44 am) versus us in the Western world who use January 1 as the start of our year. Ghazal and Goli's aunt and uncle live in Virgina so we went to their house to celebrate the night away. It was such a fun evening. We feasted on fruits, sweets, a large dinner of fish, salmon, rice dishes, and some stuff that I didn't want to know what it was but was told it tasted good, and then danced. Ran, who is from Korea, didn't want to dance because it's not right to dance in your house where she's from, but we got her to shake her groove thang anyway.
5. Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery...If you go to Arlington, be forewarned, it's very hilly and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers is, of course, up hill. The changing ceremony happens every thirty minutes (every hour in the winter months) and in between it's common to have a wreath placement ceremony too. The soldiers placed two wreaths and the trumpeter played Taps while we were there. The changing of the guard looks like a tourist show on the surface, until you realize that the Tomb Sentinels do this round the clock all year long no matter what the weather. I read about them before I left for Washington which gave the changing process more meaning to me than if I'd seen it with no explanation. http://www.arlingtoncemetery.org/ceremonies/sentinelsotu.html
Currently there are over 315,000 veterans, veteran family members, US executive officials (ie: Presidents of the United States), and prisoners of war buried at Arlington. The cemetery is quickly running out of land to continue burying individuals in single plots so now it's standard procedure to bury family members stacked in the same plot. Headstone with multiple names denote which families are buried like this.
4. Georgetown...We intended on making an evening of walking around Georgetown, but we only managed to do a driving tour of this historic district. From what little I've seen of Washington, D.C., this is my favorite area. It's quaint, clean, upscale yet a little on the bohemian side with it's boutique shops in narrow buildings, and it's located on the Potomac River which gives it that "town" feeling. We stopped for pictures at National Cathedral which is lovely at night.
3. Seeing The Star Spangled Banner...The one and only flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write our national anthem. It's battered, worn thread bare, has large chunks of fabric missing from being a casualty of war, huge, and could not be more majestic. It's on display at the Museum of American History where it's undergone restoration and is in the best condition it's been in since it hung at Ft. McHenry in 1814 (during the War of 1812). I didn't care for this museum, but seeing Old Glory was enough to make touring it worth while. http://americanhistory.si.edu/starspangledbanner/
2. Visiting Lincoln Memorial...We were out late on St. Patrick's Day and decided to drive around while there was little traffic to see the monuments lit up at night. Parking is a bit tricky around The Mall and since none of us really knew what we were doing, it took a few trips around the blocks to figure out where we could stop or park. One of our learning lessons came when Ghazal pulled over in an inlet off Constitution St. so I could take a picture of the white house at night. That's when we met the secret service officer up close and personal. He shined his flashlights in our faces, approached our car, chatted with us for a minute, realized that we were just lost tourists, and pointed us in the right direction. Nice guy. And cute too :-)
Anyway...we circled and circled and circled The Mall and FINALLY found the closest parking spot near the Lincoln Memorial. It was 11:30 at night and we were going to have to walk a but of a distance through or around a dark park to get there. Camy and Goli were asleep in the back seat, Ghazal didn't want to go, so that left Ran and me to go on an adventure by ourselves. We speed walked to the monument, climbed the stairs, turned around to see the Washington Monument glowing against the black sky with it's mirror image in the reflecting pool and just stopped in our tracks. During the day the Washington Monument is really nothing to write home about. It's just an obelisk of white limestone. No big deal. But at night? That's a different story. This the image shown on newscasts, public TV addresses, postcards and magazine covers. This is something to look at. Ran and I snapped a couple pictures of each other with the Washington Monument in the back and then it happened...my camera battery died!! Deader than a door nail.
For a moment my heart dropped. Here I was at the perfect time with only a handful of tourists to not get in the way of my pictures looking at President Lincoln's grand statue and thinking that I'm going to have to take a picture with my own internal memory and not a camera when Ran whipped out her camera. YAY Ran!!! I was so happy because there is no way I would remember all the features by myself. Let the picture taking commence!
I stood in awe of Lincoln's statue. First, it's huge. I did not expect it to be that large at all. Second, it's fantastic. It's just what a national memorial should be. It's magnificent at night with the lighting emphasizing all the details. Standing in front of President Lincoln's statue gave me the feeling of being an American. I know that sounds a bit like a "Well, duh!" statement, but that's just the way I felt. Standing at the base of his feet and looking at his wise face it just seemed like everything was going to be all right in the USA.
(Before my camera died. I still need to get my Lincoln pictures from Ran.)
1. Luray Caverns in Luray, VA...BEAUTIFUL! I never thought I'd enjoy touring a cave as much as I did, but I loved, loved, loved this side trip. There's a whole world under the surface of the earth and it's something everyone needs to see to appreciate Spaceship Earth even more. http://www.luraycaverns.com/
The expanded version of pictures...
No comments:
Post a Comment