Live from the kennedy Center

Hello,

No, I am not writing this live from the Kennedy Center so the title is a bit misleading, but I was at there last night for a performance of the National Symphony Orchestra. My friend Jenny, remember her from the Dupont Circle Museum Walk, told me about a way to get free tickets to events at the Kennedy Center so I signed up and was notified that I could go to the Symphony for free. Well, you can't beat that with a stick so I decided to go. The bonus was Jenny was going to be able to go also. The biggest problem was how to get to the Kennedy Center. It isn't a Metro stop so there would have to be a bus involved as well. I went on the Metro's Trip Planning website and it listed about 4 different ways I could get there. I chose the one that I thought would be the best and started off. Now, I do have to say that the route the Trip Planner gave me did get me to the Kennedy Center, but it involved a train, two buses, and a LONG wait in traffic. In fact, I was almost late. Yikes! Come to find out there was a MUCH easier way to get there! Gggrrrrrrr. Oh well, lesson learned.

As for the concert, Oh My Goodness! It was awesome! I am now a low to moderate groupie on the Official Groupie Scale (one being low and ten being high--yes, I did make this up but feel free to use it. I haven't copyrighted it.... yet :)) of an Estonian conductor I had never heard of before last night! The music was wonderful and there was a world famous percussionist, Dame Evelyn Glennis of whom I also have never heard, who did a wonderful solo using about 30 different instruments throughout one of the pieces. For me, though, the director made the entire evening. He conducted with such energy and personality that it made the concert a wonderful visual as well as auditory experience. He even led the orchestra in a bit of a jam session for the encore! Afterward, he and Dame Evelyn came out with a moderator/interviewer and they talked about the concert and answered questions. It was a great evening.

As I was leaving I decided to try the easier way that Jenny had told me about so I asked one of the guards which way to start out, and she pointed me in the right direction. Another person was asking the same question so we decided to walk together. Her name is Heidi, and she teaches dance at the University of Montana in Missoula. She was there to see a different program so we talked about what we saw as we walked. It was a beautiful evening in DC perfect for walking and there was actually a Metro station close enough to walk to! Not only that, but there is a free shuttle bus from that Metro station to the Kennedy Center!! Like I said, lesson learned!

Sorry no pictures this time!
Tami

P.S. The Groupie thing, well I am also about a 5 on the Groupie Scale for Graham Hamilton. He played Hamlet at the Folger and in the program he had a website listed so I looked it up and there was an email address. I sent him a short "great performance" email, and he emailed me back! I think that definitely rates at least a 5, don't you?? :)

Anchors aweigh

My mother's father served in the Navy during W.W. II, but I never really got a chance to talk to him about his service. I know he was a motormac and worked on submarines while stationed in Saipan and that is about it. We have pictures of him in uniform, and we even found a uniform when we were cleaning out my grandmother's house after she passed away. Most of the rest of my family were farmers during the war which was so important that they didn't join the service and weren't drafted. My mother's aunt did serve in the Coast Guard, but I don't know very much about that either.

It was a surprise to come across the Navy Memorial while just walking down the street. It is on the "back side" (opposite The Mall side) of the National Archive where the Declaration of Independence is kept. To be honest, I hadn't really thought about trying to find one. I mean there had to be one somewhere in DC, and I hadn't seen one on the trips I take with the students so I should have been on the hunt for it. No such luck.

I stopped to take pictures of it..it is very nicely done, and I asked a man who was setting up chairs in the middle of it what was going on there. He told me one of the Navy bands was going to be playing there later. Well, lets get to that Post Office Tower, take some pictures, and get back in time to see a band in dress white uniforms play some jazz!

It was the perfect evening to be outside, and the music was wonderful--a mix of classic and new jazz. While I was sitting there I started talking to one of the ladies who works at the Memorial's information office, and I confessed that I didn't know much about what my grandfather had done while in the navy during the war. She told me how I could get access to that information! There was a form I needed to fill out and then the military would send it to me! Jackpot!!

I have the form, and I can't wait to send it in and learn more about my Grandfather. It is amazing to me how different parts of this trip has made me think of a lot of different people. While I was touring Woodrow Wilson's house and looking at his walking sticks I thought about my husband's brother who has collected some also-especially from his trips to England. While I was at the DAR I thought about my friend from school who has talked about wanting to do family research there. Whenever I see anything about Iowa I take a picture of it to send to my mom and sister, and I do the same with things from Indiana. I also try to remember to take pictures of things from Ohio for Tom's family. Just about everywhere I go I can't help thinking of who might enjoy this experience also. I may be far away physically, but my thoughts are often with all of you.

Love,

Tami

Why it took me two hours to walk six blocks..or just another day in DC

O.K. Let me explain.

When I got up Tuesday I was tired and had the world's worst blister on my right foot so I decided to take it easy. As you can tell, the big white building at the top of the picture is the Capitol, but if you look on the left at the clump of trees the first building closest to you is The Newseum. It is a museum dedicated to our First Amendment right to a free press, and it is wonderful! There are a lot of great exhibits there and many of them are interactive so you walk through them slowly, stop often, and sit down. Perfect if you are tired and have a blister! I am going to encourage anyone who comes to see me to go there because I think they will really like it. I spent about two hours there and didn't see everything so I really want my guests to go so that I can go back :)

Anyway, just 6 blocks from there is the Old Post Office with a great bell tower from which to see the city (and to take this picture). My guidebook said it was worth going to, and since it was only 6 blocks away it wouldn't hurt my blister too much. So I started walking. If you look on the left in the picture again and see another indention with green space you might also notice that there are two white poles sticking up. This is part of the Navy Memorial! I have never seen it before and since my grandfather was in the Navy I decided to stop for a minute (more about that in another blog). Behind the memorial is 8th street, and I spotted a drug store a couple of blocks away so I started walking up the street just far enough to stop and get a few things, but there was a really cool building at the end of the street, and I was curious to see what it was. I found out it was the Portrait Gallery! One of my favorite places in DC! I had to go there for just a few minutes (more about that in a later blog, too).

After spending some time in the Portrait Gallery I came back down the street, past the drug store, to the Navy Memorial and continued down the street to the Old Post Office where I did go up into the bell tower, see the view, and take pictures. It only took me two hours to get there!

Tami

killing time in DC

Monday--

Monday was Supreme Court day. The Court hears cases from October -March/April and then starts handing down their decisions in June. Each Monday in June they hand down those decisions that are ready at that time and the public can be in the court room while they do it. Well, I missed the actual handing down of decisions by about 15 minutes, but now I know what to do so I can be there on time next Monday. I did get a chance to tour the building and hear a lecture about the court so it worked out just fine.

I was also planning to go back to the Folger Shakespeare Library to take a tour after I left the Supreme Court building because they are so close together. I saw the play there on Sunday, but I didn't get a chance to tour the rest of the place. I had some time to kill so I decided to walk. On Sunday I went north and found the Alice Paul house so on Monday I decided to go east. That is one of the most wonderful things about this city everywhere you go there are interesting things to see. It really pays to be early so that you have a chance to explore. My father, whose motto is "if you aren't at least 15 minutes early then you are late", should be proud of me!

Anyway, about 10 blocks from the Supreme Court is Lincoln Park. It is just a little neighborhood park with a statue of Lincoln "freeing" a kneeling slave at one end and a statue of Mary McLeod Bethune at the other. There is a playground and some benches and that is about it. But, as you can see from the pictures, it was a beautiful day--sunny and not too hot or humid. It was a nice place to sit, relax, and watch the world go by...sigh... As I was walking back toward the Court and the Library I found the Eastern Market which is great because that is on the agenda for Saturday.

When I got back to the Library I almost had a private tour as I was the only one waiting, but four other people joined in so it was a good sized group. The tour guide was very nice and knowledgeable. They were going to have a lecture there Monday night with a couple of people who worked on the movie version of Hamlet with Kenneth Brannaugh, and I was able to get a ticket! It was interesting to hear them talk about the play because the two actors had both done it on stage and on film so they had some real insights into the characters.

I have now been to the Folger Shakespeare Library 3 times in 2 days. I think I can take that off my list of places to see!

Tami

My new address?

As you can see the real estate market in D.C. is dooming. The house on the left is on Embassy Row about a block away from Dupont Circle. The house on the right is across the street from the Supreme Court. I was practically standing on the court's back steps to take this picture. Which do you think we should buy???

I have to admit I am leaning toward the house on the left. I found it on Saturday during the Dupont Neighborhood Museum Walk. Ten museums in the Dupont area were hosting a weekend when people could visit for free, and they provided a shuttle between them. My first stop was Woodrow Wilson's house. Hey, where else would an American history buff start? I managed to make it to Dupont Circle even though it required transferring Metro lines which was a piece of cake and riding backwards on one train which I don't recommend. There was supposed to be a table set up in the park to provide information, but I didn't find one. There was a handy tourist sign with the names of various local attractions including Wilson's house so I just decided to start walking. It was quite a hike, and then it seemed as though I was getting into a residential area, and the only other person on the side walk was a girl. I was beginning to think I was in the wrong place when one of us asked the other if we knew where we were going. She was looking for the Textile Museum, and I had no clue where that was. It so happens that there was a man in his front yard so we asked him and he told us we were within a couple of blocks of both places because they are right next door to each other!

Well, Jenny, my new friend, and I toured the Wilson House first, and they had a really cool exhibit of his walking sticks. Now, you wouldn't think that this is very interesting, but he had over 30 of them, and they were all unique. Making walking sticks used to be quite the art form. Then we went to the Textile Museum where children could do block printing or weave little mats or make bracelets out of yarn after watching it being carded, spun and dyed. They let big kids like Jenny and me make things too so she made a block print bandanna and I made a bracelet.

Next we took the shuttle to Dumbarton House which is really interesting. It is staged as the family's home circa 1800 and had things I hadn't seen before such as an ice cream pot, an ingeniously designed commode, and finger bowls that were used to rinse wine glasses between courses. After that we took the shuttle to the Anderson House. Larz Anderson was a diplomat who was our ambassador to Japan for a while. His house is staged as it would have been in 1905 when he was in diplomatic service. He was quite the robber baron! After his death, his wife gave the house to the Society of Cincinnati to use as its headquarters. Google the story of Cincinnatus because it is pretty interesting.

Our next stop was the Phillips Collection art museum. This place had some interesting art and some nervous employees. It was wonderful to see pieces by Monet, van Gogh, Cezanne, and Picasso all in one place, but when one of the workers practically slapped Jenny's hand for pointing too close to the art we decided maybe it wasn't the type of museum for us! I was near here where I found "my house". I have seen how hard it is to drive around the area, but the metro is right there so I think it would work out o.k.

There were five other museums we could have explored, but by this point we were tired and the last shuttle would be leaving soon so we decided to leave the tour. The National Geographic Society has a museum that isn't too far away, and Jenny really liked it the last time she was in DC so we decided to go there. Jenny is 21 and a biology major from Florida. She is here working for 10 weeks as an intern at the National Institutes of Health in cancer research. This is her second internship. Last summer she spent 13 weeks working on a different project for the NIH. She was full of good advice from her last trip here that she shared with me, but next year she is hoping to intern with NASA so this could be her last extended trip to DC. A lot of things on my list to do are also on hers.

We toured the National Geographic Society museum which focuses primarily on their work to help third world countries with shelter, transportation, education, and clean drinking water. Sometimes it feels like there is nothing that can be done to end poverty, but there are wonderful things being done. It is just a matter of getting these things to the places where they can do the most good.

After this last museum Jenny and I said good-bye, but we might try to hook up again. She has weekends off and likes to go exploring. The other interns she has met so far aren't interested in things like the Dupont Museum Walk so she was by herself and didn't mind hanging out with someone old enough to be her mother! She didn't make me feel too old, though, bless her.

Today I found the other house. I went to the Folger Shakespeare Library to see Hamlet. Wow!The actor playing Hamlet was wonderful! It made me remember how much I really love live theater. Not enough to start directing high school theater again, but I really need to go see more shows. I got to the theater a little early so I decided to walk around a bit. I went past the Library of Congress and the Supreme Court where I found "my second house". I also found The Sewall-Belmont House close by which I think is miss named. It was actually owned by Alice Paul who fought for years for the passage of the 19th Amendment to give women the right to vote and the ERA Amendment. I took a quick tour of her home and made it back to the theater in time for the play. Today was a much easier day :)

Well, which house do you think I should buy?

Tami

The best laid plans

Hello again,

The plan for Friday was to go to the Decatur House. It is located across Lafayette Park from the White House making it the President's closest neighbor. It was built in 1819, and a lot of famous people have lived there over the years. I didn't have any problems getting there. I am beginning to feel like a Metro pro (famous last words). The problem was they had to evacuate the house because they were having problems with their gas meter. Ooopps! They only give tours on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and they were going to be closed all this weekend. Well, I can reschedule for next weekend.

Now, what to do since my plans didn't work out? I decided to start walking, and I found the Blair House. This is where the President-elect stays before his inauguration, and it is also where guests of the White House stay--if they aren't invited to sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom :) I had always wanted to find it. Anyway, after that I found the Renwick Art Gallery. It is part of the Smithsonian, but it is not located on The Mall. They have a wonderful collection of art produced by Japanese people who were interred during W.W.II. They used anything they could find to produce their works including the back of their detention notification letters. I often tell my students that humans are a strange species because we crave beauty and art. We look at a sunset and don't think of the pollutants bending the sunlight to produce those colors, we just see beauty and it feeds something inside of us. Imagine having to leave everything you own behind to move to some isolated area where you are surrounded by guards and barbed wire. The landscape is barren, the camp is crowded, there is no privacy, and art is what helps keep you sane. Many of the detainees were artists who had been successful before the war and now they were teachers who helped others pass the time and express themselves. Some of the detainees had never been artists before but they produced beautiful works while in the camps. Many of them stopped once they got out because they associated their art with the camps. There were paintings, sculptures, carvings, and handcrafts that were beautiful.

After spending time in the Renwick I decided to keep walking. I really didn't have any destination in mind. Sometimes I walked with a crowd and sometimes I walked away from them. There are still a lot of school groups here. As I was walking I came to the DAR Headquarters and Museum. My mom had talked to someone she worked with and this person said I should definitely check this out if I had the chance, and a friend of mine from school is interested in visiting the DAR when she comes to DC. I decided to go in. It is really a neat place! I was able to get a personal guided tour by a very nice lady who worked very hard to see if I couldn't become a member. I don't think we qualify,but I will have to check with my mom. I think one of our ancestors on her mother's side might have been here during the colonial period. I know one of my Dad's ancestors was a horse thief so I know he wouldn't qualify! :) In the DAR Headquarters 31 different states have decorated a room that showcases their state at a particular period in their history. Iowa was the first state to "buy" a room, and it is decorated as a parlor during the 1840s. Indiana's room is also a parlor, but it is from the 1930s. Ohio has a parlor from the early 20th century, but other states have decorated their rooms as bedrooms, dining rooms, or something else. New Hampshire got an attic space, and they decorated it as a children's play room. They also had an exhibit of quilts that were really beautiful. It is really a fun place to visit. Some people go there to do genealogical research. Their library is very impressive. I was able to find a book about the history of the church where my parents got married in Fort Dodge, Iowa. The book was published in 1932--before my parents' time, but it was still interesting to look at it. I didn't recognize any names in it, but I think that is because my dad's family belonged to a different parish.

After I left the museum I was close enough to the Washington Monument to walk there so I decided to go. It is nice there because it is high enough to catch any breeze. It really felt nice because it was hot yesterday! I stopped there to take in the view--including some of the Smithsonian, and I decided to go to the Smithsonian Castle. I have never been there so I spent a little time there before catching the Metro which just happens to have a station nearby.

This wasn't the way I planned to spend my day, but the best laid plans can often be those that you make as you go! :)

Tami

The view from my roof deck

Hello!

I am safely in D.C. My flight out of Fort Wayne was delayed, so I missed my connection in Detroit, but I finally made it.

I am in a great location with everything I need nearby. I took the pictures above from the roof deck of my condo building this evening. (I am quite proud of myself. I was able to add pictures to this post with only one call to my hubby for help!) I am very pleased with my home-away-from-home. Making the housing arrangements was the hardest part of planning this whole adventure so the fact that I am staying in such a great location takes a huge load off my mind!

Today I spent about 6 blissful hours at the American History Museum. I am sure there are those of you out there that just cringed when you read that, and that is exactly why I am here by myself. I spent 6 hours (blissful, no less) in the American History Museum, and I didn't get to see everything so I am excited to get to go back. Besides there are things I want to see again :)

As I was getting off the Metro this morning I have to admit I had a pretty goofy grin on my face, and I couldn't keep from giggling a little bit. This is such an amazing place! I watched the tourists in the museum and I thought to myself that I may be a tourist but I am not rushing around trying to fit too much sightseeing in to too little time. It was an interesting feeling. I am looking forward to tomorrow!

All in all, a successful first day!

Thanks for the comments,

Tami