Washington, DC

I haven't been around much lately- I've been in Washington and Chile. I went to DC for the weekend leading up to the inauguration. I'd never been and it was really cool. I actually loved it. I hadn't realized that Washington was so far South- and carries with it a certain colonial charm. I loved the architecture and the vibe (especially this weekend). My friend Kristina lives there and she's best friends with my good friend Ashleigh (who I used to sit next to at Leo). So we all met up for the weekend.
This is us in front of the White House.


The first day we went touring around the town. There are no skyscrapers in the city because no building is allowed to be higher than the Capitol building-which was cool. It gave the district a small town feel. We saw the White House- which was cool... and then headed home because it was freezing cold. That night we went out dancing- but made it a relatively early night since we had so much tourist stuff to do the next day.

The White House.


This is Capitol Hill from far away.


The second day Ashleigh and I went to some museums and then to "The Mall" (no it's not a mall- its' a stretch of land between the Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol Hill- with the Washington Monument in the middle). It's where the "We are one" concert was held. Though we didn't get close enough to see him live, we did hear Barack speak. It was pretty cool although I did feel as though his speech was filled with also-rans and platitudes that held no meaning "We will triumph" "we will overcome" "This nation is a great nation". It's as though the speech writer just culled bits and pieces of speeches from MLKjr or JFK... but people seemed to suck it right up. And perhaps in these hard economic times it's nice to go back to the words of simpler times???
The people in the Mall at the concert.


The Washington Monument.


The Smithsonian is made up of a series of museums all within a 1mile radius. This is between the American History museum and the Natural History museum.


The main space at the Natural History museum.


The third day we went to the American Air and Space museum and then toured around Capitol Hill and soaked in the atmosphere building up in anticipation of the following day. Though I wasn't able to be there for the actual inauguration I read on CNN that there were 1.8 million people in attendance, breaking the record of 1.2 for Lyndon Johnson's inauguration.

In the Space Museum.


Capitol Hill


All in all it was an incredible weekend! Although I'm not American it was still exciting to be a part of this History and feel the excitement of a new dawn (speaking of platitudes...)