D.C.:Day Two

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Even though everyone stayed out late, we all got an early start. This was a common trend throughout the trip. We’re still trying to catch up on the sleep a week later.

Jaron had his first Executive Board meeting at 8:00 (he’s Logan’s SACA chapter secretary), and I made it out the door by 9:00 to see the city. This was also something I had been apprehensive about, mostly due to mom and dad’s incessant worry that everyone is out to get me. Though they have a valid reason and are great parents for teaching me safety, I’m pretty sure I suffer from borderline paranoia. ALL THE TIME. But, D.C. is too cool of a city to stay in the hotel room all day. I armed myself with pepper spray, cell phone, itouch (with gps), map, and chap stick. The first of which was most annoying to carry because I couldn’t take it into any government buildings. I still don’t know how Kara made it through everything with a taser!

 The weather was nice, the traffic calm, and the bums all still asleep when I first hit the concrete. After walking around for an hour or so, I realized all the museums were closed at least until noon on Sunday. At 10:30, my feet were already tired and I gave up walking for a Starbucks and my homework (conveniently on my itouch J). I met some med students in Starbucks who were also in town for a conference. I wanted to have something so much cooler to say than, I’m an English major. Oh well.

Finally, museums opened! My first stop was the Smithsonian Art, which is combined with the Portrait gallery. SO MUCH to see! I loved going at my own pace, and spent a full three hours wandering around. It was HUGE! Here are some of my favorite highlights: adventure

·             The Presidents’ Gallery held portraits from the beginning and displayed them in a regal and spacious room. The contrast surprised me between the nobility of the early presidents from the celebrity of those latter. But I’m sure that’s associated with times and salaries. Did you know George Washington opted for a super low salary and fought to always keep it thus so the position would never be sought for money, but instead for the goodness of serving a people?  Last year Obama and Michele reported earning $ 5,505,409 on their taxes. A big chunk of that was from book sales, which, again, irks me that our president has time to write and profit from book sales while dealing with every national and international crisis…

·             On the other spectrum of art, my favorite contemporary piece was incredible. I watched it for like 20 min. Yes, “watched” because it was a multimedia project. Picture this: HUGE blank wall—maybe 50’ x 20’. On it, an outline of the US states in neon lights. This included Alaska and Hawaii, which were on an adjacent wall. Inside each of those florescent-bordered states was crammed a whole bunch of tube TVs. Texas had like 15 TVs of all different sizes. Hawaii’s islands had one tiny in each. Playing on each of these TVs was either a reel of state news channels reporting major events, local advertisements, or musicals made about that state. MO had Meet Me in St. Louis going. Kansas, The Wizard of Oz. Oklahoma, South Pacific, etc. My favorite, though, was Idaho. Poor Idaho. All it had playing was two moving shots: one of freshly harvested potatoes, the other of freshly bagged potatoes. That was it! Over and over again. The whole was the most charming post-modernist representation of the U.S. I had seen. And it was created by an Asian. Go figure.

·             The last most impressive area was the stacks. I can’t remember what it was called, but I found this gorgeously decorated library with rows and rows of paintings set in small, glass cases. It was set up like a library, but with paintings, photos, and sculpture hanging on each of the rows. Three stories. And below the hanging art were drawers of more art and jewelry and sculptures which wouldn’t fit in the cases. I’m pretty sure this was just the room for all the extra stuff that wouldn’t fit in the main gallery, but they made impressive use out of it.

There were plenty of other impressive sights there, but I’ll leave at that for now. When I left I was in a bit of a daze—and starving. One power bar and a grande apple cider since breakfast at 7:30 wasn’t lasting me too well. I was hoping to catch up with Jaron for dinner, but he was still in meetings and had already eaten anyway, so I enjoyed a lonely, but organic and filling salad at one of the bistros near the hotel. I should have gone to see more that day, but I kept thinking I had three more for sight seeing and I was exhausted. So, I finally did meet up with Jaron and helped psych him up for his karaoke debut.

Yes, dear Jaron, who had never sung karaoke before, and who had only ever sung one solo song in church before, decided he was going to be Logan’s chapter “idol.” This means he dressed up like a total nerd, got up in front of 400 chiro students and sang Weird Al’s “White and Nerdy” for a chance to win a $2000 scholarship. I was so proud. I’ve got a full video. Can’t decide if it’s going up on fb or not yet. I might need to save it for blackmail later. J He did a great job, but didn’t win. There were some other, very talented singers who did. We had a good time of it anyway.

After SACA Idol, Jaron got into less nerdy clothes and we walked around searching for food. After a long walk of looking in bar windows (because that’s the only restaurant open at 10pm), we finally found this funky little place called Luna’s; Definitely a Mommy Wendy type place; Crazy wall paint, modge-podge décor and lots of half moons. It was just Jaron and I in the place, with the two cooks and one waitress. We all watched the Oscar Awards. Jaron and I attacked a very large pile of organic nachos before making the long, quiet walk back to our hotel.