National Monuments and Touristy Sites

So went to the Botanical Gardens(above), Lincoln Memorial, MLK Memorial, WW II Memorial, Vietnam memorial and several others in Washington D.C. and had a blast. This was pretty much just a touristy day with lots of picture taking so I figured instead of talking you to death, I'll just show you what we saw and take you on your own personal tour (with me of course) of the monuments.This, although not a largely flattering picture of me, was my favorite part of the botanical gardens! The orchid room, orchids, orchids, orchids EVERYWHERE! Growing off of everything and it smelled amazing. (more pics on facebook if you want to see more of the Botanical gardens)

So when you first arrive to the Area of Monuments (love the fancy name I gave it? Classic.) We see the Washington Monument. Which coincidentally (because of the earthquake) we can't go inside. It's been cracked and there's water leaking from something so its unsafe. It is, however, entirely tall and overwhelming as you can see. Now I know your wondering, "Wheres the classic picture with the reflection pool?" To my dismay they are currently rebuilding the reflection pool and it is a pool no more (just dirt).
Next we arrive at the World War II Memorial which is HUGE! On either side of the entrance there are sculpted pictures in rock depicting the evolution of war on the West Coast (on one side) and East Coast (on the other). From afar this is what the monument looks like. After the WW II Memorial we went to the newly opened, Martin Luther King Memorial which is amazing and highly intimidating. As you can see, me and Martin Luther King share a remarkable resemblance. After the Martin Luther King Memorial we went to what I had been waiting to go to ALL DAY LONG! The Lincoln Memorial. It was fantastic! I really wanted to climb up and sit on his lap but decided it would be highly inappropriate and settled for this:) While walking around the memorial we saw these handsome Navy Sailors and asked them to take a picture with us! We talked with them a little and they said that our picture was probably the 3000th they'd taken that day hahaAfter this little detour we arrived at the Vietnam War Memorial (we also went to the Korean War Memorial but I didn't take any pictures sorry!) My favorite part of which was that you can see your face reflected in the names of those who passed away. Just like the picture below! (Its a long black wall in the shape of a V sort of with names like what you see here. The names are organized by the year they died, on either side of the very center are the names of those who died first and last in the war. Many people place pictures, flowers etc at the bottom of the wall because it serves as a grave for those who never got a body back to bury:(It was a long and wonderful day! Which ended with a ride home on the metro:) Which coincidentally is not nearly as difficult to navigate as I thought.It does, however, have a certain odor to it!

Bilbo Baggins and the Salad that was Duck.

Well ladies and gentleman who're reading this, yet another adventure in the city that is D.C. Well actually it takes place in Old Town Alexandria in Virginia. Its the cute old town with lots of shops and restaurants right near the dock of a river (not sure which one it was but I'll let you know). It was great the day started out with us finding out that riding a trolley is free (like so many other things out here in D.C. For example, the Smithsonian...oh yea.) We took a trolley in to the farthest end of town and began the day. There was this fantastic guy playing the national anthem on water glasses, and a man doing characatures (sp?), the smell of fish in the air. It was pretty much a mini-version of San Francisco with more trees.

After arriving we got a brochure that listed all the sites and restaurants in the area and we were starving. As Lene read aloud our options she came across Bilbo Baggins Restaurant, to say that i was excited is an understatement. Everyone else was leaning towards this French Cafe called Little Madelines but not I. Everyone could see how excited I was so we decided to take a detour of the main street and find this restaurant. It was far off the beaten path, but in my mind it was totally worth it. I mean Bilbo Baggins restaurant? I'm picturing small round doors, waiters dressed as hobbits, quaint background music (maybe even the soundtrack from LOTR playing). We get there and find out its a bar, but they've posted the menu for the restaurant outside and it doesn't look too bad. We're starving so we decide to eat there, big mistake. We walk in and I am immediately confronted with golf and fishing paraphernalia (random? YES!), as we continue to take in the scenery we are noticing more and more odd things. Random posters from the 1950's, old advertisements, I mean this is the most random out there spot I've ever been too. We all order and get our food, its ok not delicious but it did the job all right. Until we all notice Lene has a very unhappy expression she chose to order the whopping Duck Salad. Duck Salad?! Who orders Duck Salad from a bar menu in the middle of a run down junky street. Lene thats who. I tried a bite and the only way I can describe it is, it tasted like wet, spicy wood. Haha it was a pretty great day. We later ate at the Lavendar Moon Cupcake Cafe, which was festive and delicious, and window shopped around the town. It started raining around 4 so we called it a night and waited for the trolley under an overhang, where I proceeded to re-enact Gene Kelly's singing in the rain routine on the street with a lamp post. It was a fantastic trip and day.

FIRE!!! And free cupcakes

So this last Thursday morning (September 1st) I woke up at 3:45am to one of my roommates moms (she was visiting from Norway) screaming "FIRE! There's a fire!", upon opening the front door we were bombarded with white smoke and immediately turned around to grab a few things and evacuate the building (You know how people always ask what three things would you grab if there was an emergency and you had to leave your home? I always thought I'd grab my scriptures but I didn't even think about it. The only thing I thought to grab was my wallet which was inside my purse so I grabbed my purse, shoes and a random book that was on a table near the front door to read!). My purse also happened to have my camera so I was snapping pictures (all blurry by the way) like crazy throughout the whole ordeal (I was surprisingly calm and not worried at all for some reason). After about 20 minutes or so outside the building we were allowed back in. Some kids had taken the fire extinguishers from several floors and sprayed the floor with them, creating an illusion of "white smoke" in the hallway and pulled the fire alarm. Hurray for pranks! (Personally I think it served as a distraction or cover up for a robbery in one of our apartments, which sounds crazy but think about it...why would they do that on several floors, simultaneously? It was an organized effort...)

I have now toured my school, Maury Elementary, and met my Mentor Teacher (she's the teacher whose classroom I will be sitting in on and teaching in throughout this next semester). Her name is Mrs.Dorsey, she's been teaching 1st grade for 15 years (That's right! I'm in a first grade classroom! YAY!!). The kids in her classroom are darling, and I can't wait to get to know them better. Mrs.Dorsey does NOT mess around. She runs a seriously tight ship (her mom was a teacher too so she's super old school when it comes to the classroom). On my first day of observation one of her kids decided to complete the entire worksheet she had just handed out and he did it wrong. Mrs.Dorsey took his paper, said "No sir, we do not do that in this classroom" ripped it in half and had him get a new one and start all over. I am in for a wild ride, but I am really excited to start learning and teaching and sharing professional perspectives in the classroom with her and the students.

Friday night me and my roomies went to Georgetown, its like a downtown area with shops and restaurants, in Washington D.C. While walking around looking for a place to eat we came across this bridge over a river, with these tree branches reaching over it. I mean it was beautiful, right out of the Disney Movie Princess and the Frog. I'm positive that there was fireflies there later that evening, my roommate said she saw one. We decided to eat at an Italian restaurant called Pablo's (I got Pizza Rustico- it had Italian sausage, goat cheese, mozzarella cheese, caramelized onions and potatoes! It was different but SO GOOD!). When they brought me my food, my pizza had a piece of rosemary on top that had been burned- so it had these glowing embers on it and was smoking a bit. It was SO COOL! I loved it, I had my roommate take pictures of it and I'll upload one soon (just for you Chelle, I know how much you love your food haha). Later that evening we decided to walk down to Georgetown Cupcakes (It's apparently a show on TLC, I've never seen it but my roomies were freaking out about going to it). When we got there it was closed and we were disappointed at first but than a guy appeared out of nowhere. He had overheard us talking about how it was closed and asked if we wanted some free cupcakes. He explained that he packs cupcakes there for a living (he was wearing a Georgetown shirt and waiting outside of the building for a ride home)and he always gets free ones at the end of the night, he said he'd packed himself some but he gets them so often that he gets sick of them and asked if we wanted them. We TOTALLY did! I was so excited I almost hugged him (If his ride hadn't gotten there I totally would have). We looked at them later- 20 cupcakes! Birthday cake, red velvet, chocolate, vanilla and peanut butter chocolate. They were so good! We've been making them last all weekend, we still have 4 left (and seeing as how there's 6 of us and its been 2 days I think we're doing pretty good). It was a great night!

I am loving DC so far. I will upload one or two pictures for each of the above events soon so you guys can see what I'm talking about!!