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Day 3 Day 3 in DC was a cold, blustery day. Artboy woke up us up at 4am, and we couldn't go back to sleep for at least 2 hours. I finally fell asleep after we could have gotten up and gotten breakfast at the hotel..he stayed awake a little longer. I woke up at 9:30am, and layed in bed for a half hour before getting up and starting to quietly get ready to leave. As I was finishing up and looking for my belt, Artboy woke up and wondered what I was doing. I let him know that I was going out, and that got him up. For some reason, he didn't want me going out by myself. I looked out the window as he was showering, and noticed that there were a bunch of police cars outside along with 3 buses. They remained there the entire time Artboy was getting ready. When we left the hotel, we were told that the President or Vice President would be arriving next door soon. We walked across the street to eat at the French bakery (yum!) and then came back to put our soup in the fridge. By this point, the sidewalk to our hotel had been blocked off, and the officer there said it would be a few more minutes. We waited. And waited, and waited and waited. At one point, they started letting people go to the hotel, and Artboy decided he wanted to go back. I wanted to catch a glimpse of the President. I may not be able to stand the guy, but it would have been cool to be close enough to him to snap a picture. Artboy went up to the room and I chatted with the other family that was waiting with us. The father is a cop from Raleigh, and was quite a character. The time flew by. Artboy came back at one point and asked how much longer it would be. Earlier, the father had told the cop that was guarding the sidewalk that whenever he had to do a blockade, he'd tell everyone it would be 20 minutes. And if they came back in 20 minutes, he'd say that he'd just received a call and that it would be 20 minutes more. So when Artboy asked me how much longer, I laughed and said, "It will be 20 minutes!" The guard, the family and I started laughing and Artboy asked what he'd missed. I filled him in and we waited. He was grumpy about waiting so long, but seriously, how often do you have the opportunity to be that close to the president? After the 20 minutes more, we left and walked to the Renwick Gallery. I'll always wonder how much longer we would have waited before seeing him. Or wonder what we would have seen. Probably not much. Oh well. The Renwick Gallery was great. There were some amazing pieces in it. It didn't hold a lot..not like the Phoenix Art Museum, but it was actually the perfect amount of art. Not overwhelming. It was a 2-story house, and the bottom floor contained an exibition by Ruth Duckworth, a modern sculptor. She had some interesting pieces that I liked a lot. There was also a video about here, which I watched a portion of. I believe she's in her 70's now, and seemed like an interesting lady with a great sense of humor. We looked around the gift shop, and then went upstairs to see the rest of the exhibits. One large room was devoted to some paintings by an artist whose paintings were devoted to portraits and scenes of native american's. I wasn't too into those, but there were a couple landscapes done by another artist that were amazing. One of yellowstone was my favorite. Another room had a wooden sculpture that looked like a Grandfather clock cloaked in a white cloth. I can't begin to explain how amazing this sculpture was. It was so realistic...it looked just like white sheet. He sculpted the drape of the sheet perfectly. Artboy and I were both absolutely amazed. THere was another piece that was a wooden desk that had many hidden drawers and the guard in there had a great story to tell about it. The artist was a british citizen who lived in South Africa and the piece was a commentary on how people are not considered people without their ID's. There was more to the piece, but I'm not sure I can explain it properly. Suffice to say, it was a beautiful piece, and I loved the message. It was a great gallery. Because it was so cold and cloudy, we didn't go to the places we'd planned on going. We decided to just walk around. We tried to go to the Sciences museum, but by the time we got there, their tours were over with. We tried to go to the DAR museum, but it was also closed. So, we just walked around, taking pictures and freezing our butts off. We ended up at the George Washington University and made our way back to the hotel. They've got some nice frat houses, let me tell you. We warmed up in a CVS, where I purchased some Tylenol. My hip has been bugging me something awful..it isn't used to walking so much, and I've been having difficulty with it anyway. We made our way back to the hotel to rest our weary legs a bit and decide one where to eat. We decided on Mexican, and I did some research online and decided on a place that came highly rated and was listed as cheap. It was a half a mile away, though, but in the end, we decided to walk it. It was unlike any mexican food I'd ever had. The chimi looked like it was baked and was filled with potatoes and chicken and cheese. There was no spiciness to the chimi or the salsa, tho both tasted good. Just not Mexican like I'm used to. THere was very little taste to the rice, and I didn't care for the beans. Even the Horchata was different--very sweet. We were the only white people in the restaurant and felt a bit out of place. The neighborhood was a bit rougher than where we've been. We could definitely tell where the good neighborhood ended and the bad one began. There were some beautiful churches along the way. We'll have to go back during the daytime to take some pictures of them. I'm not sure what tomorrow will bring, though it will be cold again. I'm very thankful that I brought the hat and scarf my mom crochetted for me. I wore them this evening and was quite warm. I'll have to remember to wear them tomorrow. :) |