Today was such an incredible day. Woke up, got a bagel, and headed out to meet Nicole. We walked probably around eight miles total today. We met up just behind the Capitol and headed toward the Lincoln Memorial (a little over three miles). On our way there, we went into the Smithsonian Castle to warm up for a sec and then continued on our way. (The windchill today was twenty degrees.) We reached Abe, took pictures, stood in MLK's place, and ended up being interviewed for a bunch of kids' school video about what our dream for America is. We saw Lincoln, the Korean War Memorial, the Vietnam War Memorial, and the WWII Memorial.
At the Vietnam memorial, we stopped and talked to a man who has been volunteering there for thirteen years. Every week, he said, they get about a hundred letters requesting rubbings of names off the wall. He said most people who receive them end up writing long letters of thanks in reply talking about what they have done with the rubbing and what it means to them. He told us that one of the other volunteers fought in Vietnam and has been flying down from Chicago once a month for the last twenty years.
On our way back up the Mall, we ducked into the American History museum just to sit on a bench for a few minutes. We were so cold that our hands were in serious pain and our faces were numb. After we'd warmed up, we went over and saw the first floor of the Natural History Museum before deciding we were too hungry to go on. We hopped on the Metro and split a huge pizza at We the Pizza (and each took home another quarter for another meal). We sat there and talked for 2-3 hours before heading home.
At home, I did a little reading for school, threw in a load of laundry, edited pictures from today, and just watched Elysium with my roommates.
OH! I almost forgot my favorite part of today. After we left Abe, we headed over to sit in the sun by the river for a few minutes, and I saw a woman eating a Poptart. She had given a couple of pieces to the birds around her, and, as such, was surrounded by tiny sparrows. So I decided to buy a muffin for two bucks and Nicole and I proceeded to drown in tiny birds (sparrows and European Starlings). Best day ever.
