Stop the clocks!

It's a good thing we'll be gaining an hour tonight because time is moving way too quickly. It has been seven weeks since I last posted about my adventures: seven WEEKS! And I just counted, I have only five weeks left here in D.C. It really feels like I just arrived here. I've continued to enjoy every moment of my time here and I am sure now that I want to live in this city some day. I have so much that I want to recap. I'll try to make this a brief (ish) overview of the things I've been doing. I have a lot of thoughts  and reflections about what I have seen and done, so if you want to know more about any of the things I mention in this post, just ask!

First of all, I have switched from using a paper calendar to using Google calendar - what a great switch that was! I'm finding it especially convenient right now as I'm using my Google calendar to remember what I have done since I last posted.

September
Dr. Adrienne Pine is a really awesome professor who I took Cultural Anthropology from during my semester at the American University in Cairo. I found Dr. Pine to be very personally inspiring, and she played a large part in my decision to switch from a Physics major to more social science-y majors. Dr. Pine is now teaching at American University, and, when I told her that I was in DC for the semester, she was kind enough to invite me to a brunch she was having for her current advisees at her home. It was a really nice time of re-connecting with an old mentor and meeting some really awesome new people. I can't believe that was a month and a half ago now!

Speaking of re-connecting with people from the past, I discovered that another friend from my time in Egypt is here in DC now. Laura was my Arabic classmate at the AUC. At the time, she was a student at Notre Dame. Now she works for Georgetown's Public Policy Institute and lives in the same building as I do. Crazy coincidence! In early October, my roommates and I had Laura and her roommate Delia over for a potluck dinner, along with some friends of ours from our program. I made Egyptian koshari (a rice and lentil dish). It's a lot more fun cooking when it's for other people! We all had a great time eating, catching up and laughing at the naked guy in the apartment across from ours.

Now back to September! In late September, I went to a House subcommittee hearing on water security in South East Asia. The hearing itself was really quite interesting. They were talking about disputes over the rights to build dams along the Mekong River. The issue presents many of the same issues as we saw with various dam construction projects in India.

Also in late September was the Barracks Row Fall Festival. I volunteered at the festival, and in doing so, earned my first free t-shirt in DC (I now have six). The festival was actually rather boring compared to other festivals I had been to. It was neat to see a new part of D.C. though. Barracks Row is part of the larger neighborhood called Capitol Hill and it is currently undergoing massive revitalization projects. The National Book Festival was on the same day, but, because I had committed myself to volunteering at the Barracks Row festival, I was unable to go.

Later that same Saturday in September (the 25th), I volunteered overnight at N Street Village; Luther Place Night Shelter for the first time. Luther Place provides long-term night residence to a group of about 30 women who commit to participating in some sort of recovery/management program over at N Street Village. The first two nights I volunteered there, Kathryn - a classmate from my program, volunteered with me. Kathryn and I have similar views and share a lot in common, so we quickly became good friends. It was certainly nice to have somebody to share in the night shelter experience for those first couple nights. The other nights that I have stayed at Luther Place, I have gone alone which is also really nice because it gives me more of a chance to connect with the women who live there.

At the very end of September, I attended the DC Idealist Grad School Fair. I went intending to look at a few particular grad school programs, but I ended up being most drawn to the Teach for America booth. Since then, I have been doing a lot of exploring options for transitioning into teaching. Over the past few years, I have worked with kids in a number of capacities (as an ELL tutor, as a camp counselor, as a tennis instructor...), and I have realized that working with middle-school aged kids really energizes me. I love how willing to learn 11-15 year olds are, and I also feel that kids in that age group are really looking for direction and people who can help them find their own direction. With all of that going on, there's so much potential to impact kids' lives at that age, and I'm really inspired by that potential.

October
October started in a very busy way. I started off Saturday, October 2nd at the DC AIDS Walk around the Capitol (free t-shirt #2!). I was walking on Team "No Glove, No Love" along with one of my fellow interns and her friends. A lot of people turned up for the walk which was pretty amazing, and I had a fun time getting to know Sarah and her friends. From the AIDS Walk, I went over to Adams Morgan for the Crafty Bastards Arts & Crafts Fair. It was really cool to see all of the neat things people make. I bought a really neat journal made out of an old copy of Dr. Seuss' One Fish, Two Fish. It's pretty awesome. The guy sells all sorts of journals made out of old books from this small one-man company called ex libris anonymous. They make such great gifts too. Very personal. After Crafty Bastards I headed back to the Lincoln Memorial for the One Nation Working Together Rally. There were tens of thousands of people there, but most of them were already leaving by the time I got there. Because so many people were leaving, I ended up being able to sit on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial behind the speakers: pretty cool! I'll put up a separate post with some pictures from the rally shortly.

A couple of weeks ago, I had another fabulously busy week. October 23rd was the DC Stop Modern Slavery Walk (t-shirt #3). I walked on Shared Hope International's team. It was quite a fun walk to do because it was a gorgeous fall day and the 5k walk took us through a tour of the monuments. I also learned a lot about modern human trafficking in the US and abroad. An opinions piece will come soon.

Later that day, I met my fellow intern Alex and my supervisor Aparna at the Green Festival. The Green Festival is basically a huge, traveling convention that showcases all things sustainable. It was really awesome to see what kinds of things out there. I won a t-shirt (#4) from one of the booths by guessing the answers to a sustainability quiz right. I had signed up to volunteer (t-shirt #5) which ended up meaning standing in a hallway directing human traffic for four hours.

The following day, I went over to Karma Kitchen for lunch. Karma Kitchen is this amazing restaurant (and more) that runs on the gift-economy concept. They serve you as much delicious Indian lunch as you want, you pay back the favor however you want, either directly by funding future meals at Karma Kitchen, or indirectly. Karma Kitchen uses their surplus funds to do awesome things like give out treats to random people. I don't know a ton about the other things Karma Kitchen does in DC, but I know that they also occasionally I have free hugs campaigns. :) What I know about Karma Kitchen comes from my supervisor Aparna who is a core member of DC's Karma Kitchen. I picked a good day to go to Karma Kitchen because, not only was I able to take part in a small celebration in honor of Aparna's birthday, but I also was able to eat with a few of the Atlas Corps (the non-profit that I intern with; post about it to come soon) fellows who arrived minutes after I did.

This past weekend was one of the busiest yet. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's Rally to Restore Sanity was on Saturday the 30th. I was able to attend (and volunteer - t-shirt #6) along with over 200,000 others. It was simply amazing to see that many people come together. I wrote an opinions article about the uniqueness of the event. I will add a separate post soon with some pictures.

After the rally on Saturday, I went to Yoni ki Baat, a South Asian American take on Eve Ensler's Vagina Monologues. I heard about the show from Aparna who was performing it. I am really glad that I went. Aparna (and all of the performers) did a really amazing job and many of the stories really resonated with me.

Sunday was Halloween. It was also the day of the Marine Corps Marathon. The marathon started and ended in Rosslyn, right in front of our apartment complex, so there was a general air of festivity all day. When I left at around noon to go to Karma Kitchen again (this time with Tricia, a classmate from the LCWS program) we didn't have much trouble getting on the metro, but when we got back at around 3 the line to get on the metro snaked around the block and continued to get longer. Pretty crazy!

Every year, Dr. Joyner, the dean of the LCWS program holds a Halloween party for the kids who live in the apartment complex that our program is housed in. My job during the party was to hand out popcorn. It ran out fast, so I got to spend most of the time playing fun games like ninja and simon says with a group of about eight 4 to 10 year old boys who I made friends with. It wasn't quite the same as having Kimo to play with, but it was still pretty darn fun. As a side note, check out Kimo, Ashraf and Katie on Halloween! My family is pretty awesome.

November

Has just started! Things have been pretty busy at Atlas Corps, so that has taken a lot of my time. I also tried to spend as much time as possible making calls for the Obama campaign.

Today I played my last team tennis match of the season. We'll not talk about the outcome. :p 

Tomorrow I am going to have lunch with another long-lost friend. Caitlin/Alyaa is currently a student at Georgetown. We were cabinmates at Arabic camp back in 2006. Since then our paths have passed in a number of crazy coincidental ways, and this is no different. We had been planning to find a time to catch up anyway, but last Thursday I ran into her at Georgetown when I was on campus for all of a few hours to staff Atlas Corps' table at a job fair. I'm excited to hear about all of the awesomeness that is going in her life!

Tomorrow we have a special Sunday field trip to...Hair the musical! I love musicals, but it has been a very long time since I saw one live. I'm stoked!

Opinions (and Counter-Opinions!)
Tuesday was, of course, election day. Disappointing day, but an exciting time to be in D.C. nonetheless. In anticipation of the elections, my last few opinions pieces were political and two of them garnered responses. Having people respond to my opinions pieces had been one of my goals for the year, so I was very excited to see it happen. I wrote a piece about my dislike of the Tea Party, informed by my experience at the Tea Party rally I attended back in September. Among the claims that Tyler made in his response was that allegations of Tea Party racism are unfounded. I had never intended to make the broad claim that the Tea Party as an establishment is racist, but I wrote this with regard to that issue.

Around the same time, I wrote an (admittedly not very well-written) plea to young Democrats to stand up for what they believe in. Mark replied with a very well-written defense of Republican policies.

I've really enjoyed the challenge of coming up with something to say each week. Some weeks I construct well-reasoned arguments that are very personally important to me and other weeks I just construct arguments. Either way, writing for the paper has so far been a both difficult and satisfying exercise in forming and expressing opinions.

Fieldtrips
This post is already very long. I think I will make a new post to recap the field trips from the past eight fieldtrips.

I should be very busy write now writing papers, applying for grad schools and other programs and keeping up to date with course readings, but if I keep putting off updating my blog until I'm not busy, it will never happen, and I like using my blog as a way of sharing my experiences with others and recording my memories for myself.

Whoo! If you read all of that, thank you! I know that this was long.

Research, Then Vote

Elections are next Friday and as valuable as it is to vote, I think it is important to remember that a vote is meaningless unless it is well researched. I actually wrote this as an opinions piece for the Concordian before I realized that the Concordian isn't printing this Friday...

If you don’t know who you are voting for on Tuesday and why, getting educated should be at the top of your priority list this weekend. These elections will have very real implications on all of our lives, and there is no excuse for not caring about them. And caring is more than showing up to vote on November 2nd. Caring means taking the time to understand what you believe and to find the candidates who most closely share those beliefs before you go to the polls.

A lot of progress has been made in the past two years. Significant reforms mean that healthcare is more accessible for everyone; perhaps the most relevant change for us right now is that we are now covered under our parents’ insurance until age 26. Tax credit loopholes that allowed companies to exploit tax laws by operating overseas have been closed, meaning that more jobs will be available here in the United States for students like us after we graduate. Student loan reforms have eliminated banks as middlemen in the loan process, meaning more money can be awarded to college students through Pell Grants. Car companies have been required to increase the gas mileage of their vehicles, and billions of dollars have been invested in clean energy technologies, an important first step in ensuring that our generation and generations to come have an earth to inherit. Hate crimes law has finally been expanded to include crimes committed based on sexual orientation or gender.

That is just a small sample of the substantial progress Congress has made over the past two years. The results of Tuesday’s election could mean moving further along that line of progress, or it could mean halting and undoing the changes that have been made.

When large-scale reforms have been passed in this country, citizens have historically voted out the progressive party before allowing the benefits of those reforms to fully take shape. As a collective, voters are perpetually dissatisfied with what they have. They vote by what they don’t want rather than vote for the causes they believe in. This election, let’s not be so flighty. I encourage you to take the time to think deeply about what you truly believe in and vote for the candidates whose principles most closely match your own rather than simply following popular trends.

No matter how busy you are, making time to properly research the candidates who will be on your ballot must be a priority. Start by looking online to see who will be on the ballot in your district. CNN has a great election website. Once you know your options, research them. Go to candidates’ websites and read their issue statements. Read editorials written about candidates. Look up incumbents’ voting records on key issues of importance to you. Go into the voting booth on Tuesday confident that you’re choosing the candidates who will move our country in a direction you can agree with. Your vote means nothing unless you really know what you are voting for.

So much to do!

Time is whizzing past me. The past two weeks have flown by in what seems like two hours. Some quick highlights:

US Capitol Tour
In the LCWS program, we don't go to our internships on Wednesdays because they are reserved for field trips. Our first Wednesday trip was to the Capitol building. The words the tour guide said were hard to follow because they came out at a monotone 100 per minute. At one point in the tour, our guide explained to us that the painter of that black and white painting that goes all the way around the inside of the dome fell of his ladder and hung from the ceiling for 20 minutes before someone found him and proceeded to fire him. It was a crazy story and probably would have earned a good laugh if we had been able to decipher what she was saying.
My personal favorite part of the tour was the corn cob pillars in the receiving hall!

Atlas Corps
I started my internship! It's been busy since the moment I walked in, and I love it. Atlas is a really neat organization. I'm too tired to do it justice at the moment, so I think I'll give it its own post later.

Festivals!
There are so many going on, and I have a hard time letting any of them pass me by which has definitely contributed to my constant state of busy-ness. (I'm not really sure what the word is...I thought it was business, but that doesn't look right...)

The first of the string of festivals was DC VegFest last Saturday. It was awesome. There were a lot of people there who I really wish I could have met. The woman in front of me in the line to buy a coconut handed a flower to the coconut vendor. She said in the most floaty, dreamy voice I've ever heard "Here. Eat this. It's really good for the eyes. This flower has such good vibrations." My insides giggled a bit. Anyway, the highlight of VegFest for me was the yummy falafel sandwich I ate. Or maybe it was the awesome hair of the woman taking photos in this pic.

Festival number 2 was the Rosslyn Jazz Festival later on Saturday. We got there toward the end and only spent 20 minutes there, but I would have loved to have stayed for longer.

On Sunday, Jordyn, Lulit and I went to the Adams Morgan neighborhood to hit up the Adams Morgan Day Festival. Adams Morgan is known as one of the most diverse spots in DC, and the festival was a lot of fun: plenty of good music, dance and food.

This Saturday, I hit up festival number four. The H Street Festival is DC's largest street festival (I think). It was a lot like the Adams Morgan Day Festival. Good music, great food and plenty of dance. In fact, a jazz band that we saw performing at the Adams Morgan Festival was also performing at the H Street Festival (the same song too!). There were all sorts of crazy booths set up. Here's one a man set up to showcase his motorcycle. The festival was plenty of fun, but not quite as fun as the process of getting there which brings me to my favorite kind of story to tell: an Ayah-Gets-Lost story.

9/12 Taxpayer March on Washington
In laymen's terms: a tea party rally. One of the requirements of the LCWS program is that we attend a protest or a demonstration and write a paper about it; I went to last weekend's Tea Party rally. I had a harder time than I thought I would synthesizing my thoughts about the Tea Party into an opinions piece for The Concordian. If you want to see more pictures of signs I saw, click here.

Newseum
Our field trip this past Wednesday was to the Newseum, the coolest museum I have ever visited. It is entirely dedicated to the news. I spent around three hours there and definitely could have spent longer. My favorite exhibit was the sports photography one because every picture had a placard next to it with a paragraph by the photographer explaining how he captured the photo. Here's an interesting one.
The other exhibit that sticks out in my mind is the 9/11 exhibit. There is a 20-minute long bone-chilling video about news reporting on that day as well as the remains of the antenna that stood on top of one of the towers and a wall full of newspaper headlines from September 12, 2001. The Fargo Forum is in the 9th column from the left and the 2nd row from the top. Some other neat things at the Newseum were Elvis' boots and credit card (I didn't realize they had credit cards in Elvis' time), a piece of the Berlin wall and a map depicting how free the press in each of the countries of the world is (red is not free, yellow is somewhat free, and green is free)


Classes
Both of my classes - The Global Agenda and American Diversity - seem really great so far. They are both very discussion centered, and the professors for both are awesome.

Horton's Kids
I went to a volunteer orientation for Horton's Kids earlier this week. Horton's Kids is an awesome tutoring and mentoring program for the kids of one of DC's poorest neighborhoods. I have applied to volunteer with them this semester, and I am really, really excited for it! I'll be a group leader for Wednesday night tutoring sessions. Only older kids come on Wednesdays and they work, not necessarily on homework, but on skills and projects that will help them finish high school and go on to college. From what I understand it is a lot more relaxed and open than Monday and Tuesday night sessions which are more traditional tutoring. I will also hopefully be able to accompany the kids on a few Sunday field trips.

Tennis
I joined a league tennis team here, and last weekend I played my first match with them. We won - whoo! I also have found a few people to play with online, so it looks like I'll be able to play two to three times a week on a regular basis.

Talk of the Nation!
We got invited to attend the recording of Talk of the Nation's special report on the state of the Gulf of Mexico last Thursday. I was one of only a couple of people who decided to go. It was fun to see what parts are actually live, how they get questions to host Neil Conan, etc. It was also neat to put faces to the names Neil Conan (host of Talk of the Nation), Sue Goodwin (Executive Producer) and Richard Harris (NPR's science correspondent) that I've heard so often. You can see all three of them in this picture. Neil Conan is on the far left, Richard Harris is the lighter-colored-suit-wearing man at the center table, and Sue Goodwin is the only woman on the far right table.

Opinions
My first opinions column of the year was in yesterday's Concordian. It is a reaction to the all of the "Ground Zero Mosque" and Quran burning headlines that have been making news in the past couple of weeks. If you're interested, you can read it here. If you have some time, I'd encourage you to read other columns and articles too. I haven't read the whole paper yet, but I've liked everything I have read.

Tea Party Rally

Last Sunday (September 12) I went to the 2nd annual Tea Party rally at the Capitol. It was exactly what I would expect it to be in a lot of ways, but it surprised me in a lot of ways too. I wrote my opinions column for this week about it. I'll post a link when that gets published on Friday, but for now, I'll just post some pictures. I know there are a lot; I want to show a large variety of the signs I saw in the interest of not misrepresenting Tea Partiers or the rally.





This man talked to me for about ten minutes about how he couldn't afford high taxes. He was quite nice.

Elect Jesus Christ? Yes. Good luck.

I saw a total of around 20 people dressed in colonial clothing. Many of the speakers spoke about going back to the mindset of colonial times and the founding fathers.
This is the only confederate flag I saw that day. I really wanted to talk to the guy holding it, but when I asked he told me that he doesn't do interviews...

I stopped to talk to this couple when I noticed that the man's shirt said "Bemidji Tea Party" on it. They came all the way from Bemidji, MN just for the rally. Again, they were quite nice people. We just don't share the same views. At all.
This (and a slew of other signs that I haven't posted) is in reference to a remark Speaker Pelosi made about the healthcare bill being too long to read.
Dramatic.







I really can't even understand what point this woman is trying to make.

Lots of people...
This one conveniently sums up the central difference between me and a Tea Partier. Robin Hood and the equity he worked to promote are good things in my book.
I saw a lot of ridiculous signs, but this is the only one that I found truly personally offensive.
This one was popular among the crowd.
You can't see her, but there is a seven or eight year old girl holding the piggy bank sign.

Ayah Gets Lost Version 783.2

Today I went to the H Street Festival although a more accurate summary of what I did today would be to say that I looked for the H Street Festival. I spent over 2 hours getting there and around 45 minutes actually at the festival.

The ads for the H Street Festival said that free shuttle bus service would be available to the festival from the Eastern Market metro station, so I didn't bother looking up directions from the station to the festival. When I got to the Eastern Market station at around 3:15, I couldn't find any sort of sign that said anything about shuttles, so I decided to walk. I picked up a copy of a free newspaper, found an ad for H Street Festival and saw that the festival was taking place on H Street (logical, huh?) between 8th and 14th streets. I looked to the street sign; I was at 7th and D. This was easy to figure out. I started walking down 7th Street. It took me until I reached Independence Avenue to realize that I was walking down the alphabet, not up it, so I turned around and walked the other way on 7th Street. I walked and walked. As I passed G street, I began to wonder why I couldn't yet hear the festival; street festivals are supposed to be loud. I shrugged to myself and kept walking to the next Street: I street. I walked back a block again. G Street. Okay...no H Street.

I stopped and thought for a second before I realized that I was still on 7th street; the festival began at the intersection of 8th and H. Maybe H didn't extend to 7th street. I walked over to 8th street and looked around. I walked up until I saw I again. I walked down to G...still no sign of H Street. Starting to get very confused, I decided that maybe they had put H Street after I, so I walked all the way to K, crossing a highway in the process. Nope. The city planners weren't alphabetically challenged. I walked back to G Street, keeping my eyes peeled for the elusive H Street. Maybe the festival really only started at 10th or 11th street, I thought to myself. I walked down G Street until I reached 10th Street. I turned and walked toward where H should be. All of a sudden I heard the faint noise of music. I was getting close! I got to where H should be, but there was still no H to be found. I could hear the music now, though, so I followed the faint sounds down G Street, all the way to 12th. There at the corner, I found the source of the music: a car stereo.

By now, it was 4 o'clock. I had been looking for the H Street Festival for 45 minutes and couldn't care less about it anymore. I started my walk back to the metro station. I had thought many times over the past almost-hour of just asking someone where H Street was, but I hadn't done it for fear of looking silly. H Street is after G Street, duh. Finally, though, I decided that I'd rather look silly than leave the big H Street Festival mystery unsolved, so I asked a passing young man where I might find H Street. I expected him to laugh and tell me it didn't exist, to point over my shoulder at the general location around which I had just been searching, but he surprised me by pointing straight ahead in the direction I was already walking. "It's that way??" I asked him incredulously. He nodded in a I-can't-believe-tourists-are-so-dumb kind of way and kept walking. All of a sudden, something I had heard on several occasions came back to me; DC is on a quadrant system. I was looking for H Street NE in the SE quadrant. Happy to have solved the mystery I walked the 20-ish blocks to H Street NE in turbo speed. Here I could hear the music from at least five blocks away. The first thing I saw when I finally got to the festival was this sign. That's the same graphic that was on all of the ads. I guess the NE on there isn't for decorational purposes...

Oh well...as far as getting lost stories go, this one was relatively harmless. I turned the short 15-block walk from the metro into a nice 40-block walk, but that's it. I can handle that. Besides, I don't know how I can expect to go anywhere on my own without getting lost. Which reminds me! Last weekend, I did the navigating to the three festivals Lulit, Jordyn and I went to and not once did we get even a little bit lost. This all serves to substantiate my God-wants-me-to-be directionally challenged argument. He moves things around to confuse me when I'm on my own, but not when I'm with others. I get it.

DC Love

I arrived in DC on Saturday morning, and I am absolutely loving it! I'm so full of anticipation that I can't sleep right now. There are many great things that I can't wait to do this semester! As for what I did so far...

I woke up at 3:15 on Saturday morning (after a full 80 minutes of sleep...) to make it to the airport in time for my 5:15 flight. My plane arrived in DC shortly after 12:30, and I took a short cab ride to the apartment complex in Rosslyn, VA where I'll be living for the semester. I got my keys and hauled my 51.2 pound duffel bag to my top (10th) floor apartment which is absolutely gorgeous! It's a great apartment with nice furnishings, good amenities and a wonderful view. I haven't taken pictures of the building or the apartment yet, but I'll do that soon and get some pictures up here.

When I arrived, my roommate Jordyn was already here, so after some quick unpacking and organizing, she and her parents kindly allowed me to tag along for some exploring and grocery shopping. We walked around the Rosslyn area, stopping to eat at Ray's Hell Burger, apparently an Obama favorite. The place was absolutely packed, but still we managed to get a table after just a short wait.
I ordered something called "The Big Punisher," and try as I might to conceal the fact that my mouth and throat were on fire, you can see the pain in my eyes and the heat in my face in this second picture.

Jordyn's mom took us grocery shopping, so our kitchen is now well stocked. We spent the rest of Saturday night relaxing and getting settled. Jordyn's mom Gail was busy documenting our first day, which is how I have these first few pictures. I'm very grateful!

On Sunday morning, Jordyn and I found ourselves on our own without much to do, so we headed over to the Georgetown neighborhood. Georgetown is literally a 5 minute walk from our apartment. It's amazing! Georgetown is full of neat little shops and cafes and of course there are college students all around, so it's really a great atmosphere. We walked down that area until we hit George Washington. When we got back to our apartment, our third roommate Lulit was just arriving. I don't have any pictures with Lulit yet, but I'll get some up soon. Lulit unpacked, and then we all headed over to the Lutheran College Washington Semester (LCWS) office for the first leg of our orientation. It was pretty standard, things-you-need-to-know type stuff.

Today (Monday and Labor Day), Dr. Joyner, Alyssa and Doug (the full-time, permanent faculty and staff of LCWS) took us on a tour of the major monuments. We saw the World War II Memorial, the Korean War Memorial and the Vietnam War Memorial in addition to the Washington, Lincoln and FDR Monuments and the Washington National Cathedral.

The National Cathedral has held state funerals for late presidents Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford. President Woodrow Wilson is the only United States president buried in DC and he is buried at the National Cathedral along with Helen Keller and a number of other notable individuals.
The Cathedral is remarkable for its Gothic architecture and marvelous stained glass windows. Construction on the National Cathedral began when the first stone was laid in 1907 with then president Teddy Roosevelt looking on. Construction finished in 1990 with then president George H.W. Bush there to witness. All facts courtesy of our fab tour guide. :)

The World War II memorial has a stone monument for each state and territory in the Union to honor the lives of those lost.


It also offers great views of the Washington Monument.

Next we headed to the Korean War Memorial which has a very different feel. The Korean War Memorial depicts soldiers trudging through the snow in their heavy gear.

Our last war memorial was the Vietnam War Memorial. The Vietnam War Memorial was designed by a Yale student and contains the names of all 58,000 soldiers who lost their livee engraved in the black stone.

Presidential monuments were a bit more exciting to visit. Here's Abe.
The Lincoln Monument with its many steps provides another great view of the Washington Monument.

The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Monument was one that I had never visited before, but it was by far my favorite. It has several chambers that you walk through to see various scenes from FDR's presidency depicted. Many of my favorite quotes were engraved on the walls. Here's one.
Another.
And one more. (Just a few of many). This one is bit hard to read, but I really like it. It says "Among American citizens there should be no forgotten men and no forgotten races." I would amend that to say "Among WORLD citizens there should be no forgotten PEOPLE and no forgotten races," but still I like it.
And here's Eleanor, a favorite of middle-school me. FDR's is the only presidential monument that has the first lady depicted.

We stopped somewhere in the middle for lunch at Union Station, and that pretty much covers our tour. We had a short break when we got back before a session on maintaining our sanity while here. :) I can see how easy it might be to try to do too much!

I had my first session of a course entitled "The Global Agenda" tonight. I got four books (paid for by LCWS...whoo!) that all look really interesting. The professor, Dr. Joyner, seems really great, and I am told by my favorite professor at Concordia that he is very well known and esteemed in the international law world. I am beyond excited for that class...wahoo! My other class, "American Diversity," meets tomorrow for the first time.

This is going to be my best semester yet.