I stayed with Dan, my old tennis doubles partner who lives in Crystal City, which is just one metro stop away from the airport. I got up at 4am and had a bowl of soup but other than that I didn't have anything to eat all day. The reason being that when my plane landed in Denver, the one to DC was already boarding. We actually arrive in DC about 10 minutes early at about 1:05 but the luggage carousel didn't start until about 1:45... what the frick, seriously. And I waited for my bag to come out. And waited. And waited. Finally the little bell went off and the belt stopped. Oh Lord, you did not just lose my bag with the all my warm clothing in it. I started walking towards the Frontier office to let them know but turn my head to give it one hopeful look, the way they do it in the movies where the character looks back to see if their lover ran out to stop their departure, and voila! It was there, sitting lonely on the belt as probably the 2nd to last piece of luggage to come out.
Dan and I went out to Pentagon but security was super tight and you can go in w/ a scheduled tour but you have to book it THREE WEEKS in advance! Three weeks? I joked with the security guard if he meant three days or hours. They don't really appreciate humor when it comes to matter of national security... So yeah, it was pretty boring and you can't take any pictures at all. The most you're gonna get is one of the five sides anyway... it's not like I had access to a helicopter. We then went over to Arlington cemetery, which was creepy, yet beautiful at the same time. That was followed by a hike across the Potomac to Lincoln Memorial and bunch of other memorial this, memorial that before we hopped on the Metro over to Rosslyn to watch the Texas-Stanford game where I met up with Paul, his fiance, and Chantal. I don't know why it didn't register in my head before, but all three of us b-school kids were all in the very first LeaderShape our freshman year. I also met up with Hilda after the Texas game at Dupont Circle for the KU game. Hilda has to take the MCAT the following Saturday so I figured this might be my only chance to see her while I'm in town.
Saturday was mostly just the cherry blossom festival stuff. Dan and I went up to the National Building Museum (I didn't know there was a museum for buildings...) where the opening ceremony was and saw some performances and arts & craft kind of stuff for family and kids. We saw the White House, the Old Postal Pavilion, the Capitol and walked over to Jefferson Memorial before getting to Arlington Cemetery again for our metro stop. It felt like everybody in DC and their grandmothers were out... it was so crowded. We walked maybe 5 miles that day? I should've brought my pedometer, that would've been a fun little fact. My feet definitely felt the impact of all five all those miles as it was very thin on the bottom, no cushion to soften the impact of the road at all.
Sydney got us some tickets to a contemporary dance performance at Sydney Harmon Hall that night. Honestly, I don't know much about dance. I've been to ballets and stuff and I'm pretty familiar w/ art and music but just never been exposed to much dance, not to mention contemporary. I didn't really understand the first performance. I usually try to find the message the artist is trying to convey through different clues or context when it comes to art or music but this performance was very messy, disorganized even... maybe that was the point. The 2nd performance was cool. There was a man who was in a yellow tight, which I think symbolizes the sun or the light because all the other performers were in the shade of the rainbow. The third and final piece didn't have music at all and you could check out an iPod shuffle for it. I brought my own. I think it was intended for us to listen to music on shuffle to get a random song but given the variety of songs I have on my iPod was going from Black Eyed Peas to say Jack Johnson... it didn't make sense at all. I eventually decided to put on something futuristic or electronic like Ghostland Observatory, Hot Chip and settled on Holy Fuck. I thought it worked magnificently. They would play sounds of New York like the subway, the PA announcement or cars. It felt like I was just listening to my iPod and people watching as I commute. The title was called "eyepiece" so I thought that was a fitting interpretation.
Dan let me borrowed one of his tennis shoes on Sunday when we head to the zoo. I wear about size 11 shoes and he had one that's 11 1/2. Paul and Chantal both mentioned the zoo when we were watching the game on Friday plus I really wanted to see the pandas. Headed back to Rosslyn for Rhodeside Grill to watch the game w/ Ryan... we lost, it was pretty miserable. I was going to Kennedy Center to meet up w/ Paul as they were going to do some engagement photos there w/ Katy, whom I've heard both Paul and Sarah talk about her but I've never met her... but the weather turn really gray and it looked like it was going to rain so I just stopped by Paul's place as they were taking their dog Duke out for a walk by the Iwo Jima Memorial (yes, I know, another memorial...). I was dead tired. I think I fell asleep watching The Soup on E! by 9pm. Dan said I was snoring, whatever dude....
Since the weather forecast for Monday was rain, I had planned to hit up the museum that day instead before my 6pm flight to stay indoors and dry. I went to the Air & Space, the Art, and the Natural History Museum while fitting a trip to Hard Rock Cafe, H&M, and Zara in there somewhere. I didn't really find anything I like at H&M and Zara, fairly disappointed I must say... I got home at like 1:30am and I went straight to bed.
I liked DC a lot, I hope the weather is better than what I've seen the 4 days I was there. It does seems kind of boring with all the museums and national monuments, but I know there's a lot of partying going on as well, I was just too tired to part take in any of that this weekend. On top of that I can't say I'm too into politics... it annoys me, so I don't know how well I'd fit in here. I'm actually thinking about going back for 4th of July (lots of people again...) or maybe even go to Georgetown for my MBA.
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